Yorkville enquirer. [volume] (Yorkville, S.C.) 1855-2006, 1910-12-16
LIFE IN CHINA.
How the Lower Glasses of the FIowery
Kingdom Exist.

How the Lower Glasses Of the FIowery
Kingdom Exist.
For the past few weeks 7 have had
daily glimpses of life in Chinese vii
lages | do not live in one. No white
man of the type one finds in the far
east is capable of that. not even a
missionary.
We found ourselves compelled late
in the summer to leave Pekin and its
accumulated villainies Of stencil and
heat: and we came here to Peitaiho.
where missionaries. diplomatists and
other foreigners seek a few weeks OF
fresh air before entering upon an
celestial capital. And what a gift Of
nature Peitaiho is to this foul-smell-
ing country. Surrounded by a range
Of splendid mountains that seem to
meet the sea in a crescent. this bit Of
sandy rolling shore. studded with Eu-
ropean bungalows. is entirely cut off
from the great eXpanse OF country
known generally as China.
There are. it is true, Chinese viii
lagos within the mountain barrier
quaint. peculiar villages: but this place
seems to belong to the foreigners. Ex-
cept when one is passing through
these villages on days when the air Is
very still the scene of the sea pre-
walls. and that Of China Is only
reminder of what we have shaken
off for a while
Yet China Is not unattractive here
when one is not compelled to live at
close quarters with her people in the
hottest weather. Indeed the Chinese
villages round about attract us daily
to pay them visits and to take our
kodaks. Who. indeed, could resist the
little village temples. with their
strange gods and the haunts OF salt
smugglers many of whom look remark
ably like American Indians, convinc-
ing one that the man of the red skin
went to the new continent by way of
the Bering Strait!
From the hilltop on which our cot
tage stands fields Of gowliang-or
kaOliang, as some translators spell it
cover all the slope back as far as
that lend color to the splendid land
scape. The gowliang, early in
September, turns brown, and the
people begin to cut it. One
wonders why they do not raise corn
or other products that would bring
them foreign money, whose purchas-
ing power is double their own. The
answer is that commerce is not yet
organized extensively except along
the waterways in China and that the
tall gowliang supplies food for man
and for beast, and fuel for the winter.
It's brown. bushy flower, in appear
ance like the tops Of maize, is made
up of grain. which the villagers are
now beginning to thresh by hand; its
long. thin leaves are being dried for
fodder: its stalks, resembling small
bamboo. are being staked as firewood
for the coming winter
You go by paths to the villages on
donkeys hired from boys. who drive
them to your door and poster you till
you leave our home-for this is the
season when the man who owns
a donkey reaps a rich reward. The
gowliang paths are hardly wide
enough in places for your donkey to
pass with you. Often the little beast
noses fallen stalks out of the way, and
you must needs lift them over your
own head. Sometimes it Is like an
arbor through which you pass.
You come upon villagers at work,
SYo will fal will hltt
always male villagers. and always
thin and always dirty fellows. OF
clothes they have very few: the men
a pair of blue linen trousers, always
blue linen; the boys a square napkin,
much Shrunk. strung from the neck
by one Of the corners.
The villages of this part of China
give one an impression of the past that
is unusual. The houses are low built.
with roofs almost fiat, reminding one
of rows of tombs in some ancient
Latin country. There is a touch Of
barbarity in the dress of the women
hObble- footed all. because outside the
great cities the belief Is still un-
shaken that women with bound feet
bear children better than others.
There is look of the red Indian in
many of the faces. and the smell Of
ages.
Children and dogs i'm numbers
scamper out of your way as you pass
down the village street, the former
shouting "FOreigner!" as our young
sterS would cry "Chinaman." the
dogs growing and making slowly for
their doors. The Chinese do not
kill dogs. because of a Superstitious
dread growing out of the Buddhist
belief that a human soul may be oc-
cupying the body of one: but If a
foreigner should slay one they rejoice
in having meat to eat
Since the years Of 1900, 1901 and
1902, when foreign soldiers were
camped in this neighborhOod, the
Chinese hold the white man and the
japanese in great respect. Women,
donkeys through the villages and the
gowliang fields. and only the ultra
timid sleep with doors barred at
nights.
Upon the hills-and this is thing
that strikes the newcomer to Peitaiho
with weird effect. especially at night
when the moon shines on the water
and the fields of gowliang and the
SOmbre black mOuntains-there stand
perhaps a hundred ruins of houses.
which the Boxers wrecked in their
mad campaign. And on the walls of
villages are to be seen still in black
letters in German and Russian the
names and numbers of regiments that
took up winter quarters in them
regiments whose soldiers plundered
the peasants and assaulted their
women.
Children whose hair is not black
and eyes are not squint. children Of
8 or 9 years of age are to be seen
in these villages hObbling on
crumpled feet if they are girls. carry
ing the short mattock and the heavy
basket if they are pigtailed boys.
In their home life the Chinese have
evidently many virtues. Adultery and
prostitution hardly exists i'm these viii
lagos. The system of early marriage,