Pittsburg dispatch. [volume] (Pittsburg [Pa.]) 1880-1923, 1891-01-11

the opposite way from us. He twists his
thread and sews the opposite way. The men
wear stockings the women socks; the men
usually ride sideways, the women astride.
The lett instead of the right is the place Of
honor. In mounting horse the Chinaman
usually puts his heel in the stirrup first,
then the toes. The men walk slow to show
their dignity and wealth. The names are
reversed-they say Smith John, not John
Smith. They write from top to bottom in
rows and always from right to left. The
front of their book is our back. Their ideas
are opposite They use the negatives ex-
travagantly. For instance. they. say, a
good man is a not bad man. For come
into the house" they say, "house in come. !"
etc.
Love to Be in Debt.
The chinaman is only happy when he is
tive dies, instead of being filled with sor-
row, he will tell you about it with laughing
face. They wear white as the color of
mourning, while we wear black. Parents
do the courting. not the children; in fact,
while individualism is strong trait in our
race, "familyism," as it might be called, is
the strong trait of the Chinamau. Every
thing revolves around the family, all the
earnings go to the family use, etc. When a
man marries, his wife becomes the drudge
of his parents; indeed, most parents get
wives for their sons in order to have some
body to work for them, and that, notwith-
standing the fact that the sons may be very
young yet. A missionary told me he met
a boy one day about IA years old, bitterly
crying, and he asked him what was the
matter. He replied that he was to be mar
ried.
The Chinaman saws toward himself; he
speaks OF the compass as pointing to the
south, not north; he says eastsouth, ETC., in
stead of southeast. Perhaps one of his chief
traits is to gamble. The Chinese are invet-
crate gamblers, beginning in boyhood. They
don't have dog fights or horse races, but
cricket fights. They get two crickets and put
them into a bowl, then taking long hair
they tickle their antenne, and the one
thinking it is the other. pitches into him,
and they fight together until one or the other
or both succumb, while the spectators freely
bet on their chances.
Very Like Some Other People.
The Chinese are also great liars and
cheats. They charge always three or five
prices and even your Christian cook thinks
ittis not wrong to make little on you by
squeezing you on what he buys for you.
When you tell shopkeeper his price is too
mucn ne l1VarlaDlY replies, that he cannot
lie." In my study of the language thus
far have been struck with the fact that it
Is unusually rich in words denoting de-
ccption or stealing of any kind. By the
way, this. leads me to mention that almost
all the words denoting anything evil OF i'm
moral have the character for woman in
them indicating that the Chinaman also
thinks that woman is the bottom of all evil.
We have not yet adopted native dress, as
we shall In the interior, for foreigners have
been here SO many years that the natives are
accustomed to us. We have a cook called
Sun Tsung, whom we pay 81 a month;
table boy, who, besides waiting on the table,
washes and irons. and for the present he re-
ceives s. a month, and a woman who makes
the beds, sweeps, sews and does general
homework, who gets So 80 month. This is
in Mexican dollars, which are worth less
than United States dollars.
For recreation / go out frequently in the
afternoons, going hunting, or visiting some
of the other missionaries. Thursday even
ing we have English prayer meeting at one
of the houses Of the missionaries; on Sunday
likewise English preaching service first and
then Chinese service, and in the afternoon
Sunday school. Most of our food can be
obtained here, but much of it has to be i'm
ported or bought at Chefoo, such as -four
(the native -four here is not very good),
kerosene oil, canned goods, etc. This makes
living somewhat expensive.