Chinese virtue

Chapter 18
They will all answer "Of course!" Judging by our Western standards, these Chinese people have never been warm in their lives.In the cold winter, their blood is like frozen river water. Although there is still water flowing under the ice, the flowing water is already freezing to the bone.A Daotai who visited abroad once said jokingly: "My yamen is not as warm as the prisons in the United States."

As we said in previous chapters, China does not care about crowding and noise.This is especially evident in the cold winter.Once the weather turns cold, the Chinese will gather three or five people to keep warm and chat.Even in the heat of summer, it is always possible to see a cabin on a ship full of Chinese people, no westerner can bear to be so crowded together, and the Chinese don't care.They don't care whether the room is ventilated or not, and they don't care whether their work will be disturbed.Even if they had the conditions to be alone in a ventilated room without being disturbed, they didn't know what the good was.In China, there are many villages around many cities, and the houses in these villages seem to be patched together, messy and messy.This is not because the land price is too high, it is also the same in the city, all kinds of narrow yards and houses are crowded together in a mess.Everyone is crowded together, and there is no space to move around.

When Chinese and foreigners go out together, the Chinese can go back to their room to sleep immediately after swallowing a few bites of dinner in the inn, ignoring the noise of passing carriages and other people drinking and chatting.But foreigners can't sleep peacefully because of various sounds, even the chewing and restless neighing of mules and horses when they eat.Chinese inns are very noisy. There are often creaking woods, barking dogs, and donkeys at night.These noises are maddening in the silence of the night.As the French missionary Mr. Gubocha said: "The Chinese know that as long as a brick is tied to the tail of the donkey, the donkey will stop braying. But they will not do this, because dozens of donkeys bray and they have nothing to do with it. Relationships. Foreigners have to care.” Chinese people are indifferent to the noise of animals, which is their innate nature and has nothing to do with their social class.The following example can exactly illustrate this problem: the wife of a Chinese high official raised more than 100 cats at one time at home.She didn't think about how the group of cats would meow, and she didn't care.

Every city in China has a large number of wild dogs.But the Chinese did not eliminate them, perhaps this behavior was influenced by the Buddhist teaching of "don't kill".Mr. Ross Brown, who once served as the U.S. ambassador to China, wrote a travelogue to the East with illustrations. There are many illustrations in this travelogue that reflect the current situation in China. Among them is an illustration called "Overview of Constantinople". It has many stray dogs gathered for a meeting.The Chinese don't feel how uncomfortable the barking of a large group of dogs is, and they never worry about being bitten by a group of mad dogs.Since the Chinese are often faced with such things, they are no strangers to it.After the Chinese are bitten by a mad dog, they just randomly apply some dog hair on the wound. Their practice is in line with our proverb "dog hair cures dog wound".At present, it seems that the Chinese still have no plans to eliminate this group of wild dogs.

The examples given before are all about Chinese people ignoring comfort.Next, let’s talk about the Chinese’s disregard for convenience.The Chinese are proud of their profound cultural heritage, and China is indeed a great country of literature. Every Chinese knows that pen, ink, paper, and inkstone are the "four treasures of the study" of the Chinese nation, and only one study has these four. , it can be called a "scholar's room".What I want to say here is that none of these important things can be carried with you.Without water to grind the ink, even if the four kinds of things are in place, it is useless, and the brush cannot be used without soaking the bristles of the brush.In addition to the brush, there are no other pens that can write in China, such as pencils.But in fact, even if they have a pencil, they can't use it, because China doesn't have a pencil sharpener.

What's more, Chinese clothes don't have pockets to hold these things.

In the previous chapter on frugality, we have mentioned that the Chinese are very good at making good things out of poor materials. This technique is admirable, but the Chinese do not know how to enjoy convenience like Westerners.In the West, travelers staying in hotels can get the services they need just by pressing a button.In China, even in the best hotels in China, if you need any service, you have to stand in the corridor and call the waiter loudly. If the voice is low, the waiter may not be heard, which is no different from the inferior hotels.

Chinese sellers are always shuttling between cities without regularity, so many daily necessities they want to buy cannot be bought in time, as if they were abandoned in Sudan.Walking at night in China requires carrying lanterns, and in some cities, lanterns can only be bought at certain vendors at certain times.Just like Westerners buy fresh milk and yeast, they buy it regularly.The urban population in China must not be as large as the rural population, because it is too inconvenient to buy things in the city.For example, people in some places are used to selling wood for building houses in February, and the wood sellers will go from city to city until the wood is sold, and if they are not sold, they will be dragged back to the wood factory.If a foreigner who has just come to China must buy wood in May, he will definitely fail, as a wise man in the East said: "There is only one chance in the world."

As we said in the previous chapters, most of the tools in China are assembled by customers who buy the parts back.From the perspective of Westerners, this is really troublesome.Once I asked my servant to buy an axe, but he couldn't find one.As a result, he bought fourteen horseshoes and asked the blacksmith to make an ax like a pickaxe, and asked the carpenter to install a handle on it. The money spent on these was much more expensive than buying a foreign axe.

According to foreigners, the most inconvenient thing in China is the lack of "sanitary facilities".No matter when, the sewers are always getting worse and worse.Even in the capital, Beijing, it is the same.The question is often asked: which city in China is the dirtiest?Even those who have lived in Beijing for a long time cannot answer this question clearly.A traveler from the north said to a person living in Xiamen that no southern city can compare with the north when it comes to filth.To prove his judgment, the two toured Xiamen together and found it to be very clean (for China at the time).

Out of jealousy, the Xiamen resident said that this judgment is not very accurate, because Xiamen has recently had a rain, and the streets have just been washed clean!The traveler went to Fuzhou again. He found that Fuzhou was the dirtiest city in China, and then went to Ningbo and Tianjin successively. He believed that his conclusion was correct.In the end, he returned to Beijing, and when he was thinking about the health level in Beijing, he withdrew his arbitrary judgment back then.

When it comes to the inconvenience of living in China, every foreigner will complain: there are few post offices, roads are blocked, currency circulation is not smooth, and so on.Although China also has private post offices, the business coverage of such private post offices is too small.In the previous chapters we have said that China's roads are in bad condition.There is a very narrow mountain road in Shandong, guarded by soldiers on both sides of the road, which can only be passed in a prescribed direction according to the prescribed time.We once talked about Chinese shoes and China's road conditions. Combining the two situations, we came to a conclusion: On rainy days, Chinese people can only stay at home and not go out.In the West, we often say that a person is so stupid that he doesn't even know how to go home to hide from the rain; but in China, we have to change this sentence to "I don't even know how to hide at home and not go out in rainy days".

The Chinese often say: "Wait until the rain stops." Apart from government departments, many Chinese people's activities have to change with the change of the weather.Even in the course of official duties.China has a very strong garrison fortress with excellent weapons and well-trained soldiers.But every rainy day, the soldiers on the sentry post would give up their guard and go back indoors.They strictly abide by the saying "wait until the rain stops". In 1870, a tragedy occurred in Tianjin, but a timely rainstorm prevented the spread of the tragedy, otherwise the death toll would have quadrupled.A foreigner once saw with his own eyes that the water jet sprayed from a high-pressure water gun can suppress a brutal mob in 5 minutes.This kind of water gun is much more useful than rubber bullet barrels, because the Chinese have a strong aversion to water since the Han Dynasty.For the Chinese, the cold water sprayed on the body is fatal.

To explain China's currency system clearly, a paragraph of text, or even a thesis is far from enough, at least a book is needed to explain it clearly.China's currency system is so chaotic that it would drive a westerner crazy.Perhaps this malady will gradually disappear.This question about "accuracy" is really confusing.One hundred Wen coins in China are not one hundred copper coins, and one thousand Wen is not one thousand copper coins. The specific number of coins can only be judged by experience.In many areas of China, one copper coin counts as two Wen, and the same is true for more than twenty copper coins.So when you get five hundred wen, it is likely that you only got 250 copper coins.These also vary according to the rules of different places.

In China, there are always a lot of counterfeit money flowing into the market and society, causing quarrels among businessmen in various industries.From time to time magistrates issue proclamations to stop this.As a result, the taxation of the banks increased, which caused great harm to the circulation of money, and prices rose accordingly, forming a vicious circle in the end.Even if the currency is recirculated, prices will not immediately fall back.

In response to this situation, a very effective law has gradually formed: bad money drives out good money.The condition of the money went from bad to worse, until people in some parts of Henan went to the market with two sets of money: one set of fake money, and one set of real money mixed with old and new.Some items were paid for only with fake money, while others cost double the price.

Most Chinese coins are dirty.Because the rope that wears money is easy to break, especially the money string with many copper coins such as five hundred Wen or one thousand Wen.It is really troublesome to count and re-thread the scattered copper coins.The weight of each copper coin is different. The only thing that is the same is that each string of coins is heavy and bulky. If you use Chinese copper coins to exchange one dollar of Mexican dollars, the weight of the copper coins is about eight pounds, and you hang them in the money bag on your waist. It can hold hundreds of copper coins.If you spend a few coins at a time, even carrying coins is a problem.In order to solve the problem of the inconvenience of carrying copper coins, the Chinese replaced high-value copper coins with silver ingots and silver notes.However, it is easy to be deceived when trading with silver ingots, causing great losses.Although using bank notes is a good method, it will face new problems, such as regional issues. Bank notes issued by local banks cannot be used in other places, and even if they can be used, they will be depreciated a lot.Going to the bank to exchange silver bills for silver would cause conflicts of greater or lesser magnitude with the owner of the bank.To our surprise, even with so many intractable problems, the Chinese still go about doing business in an orderly manner, not paying any attention to it.As mentioned in the previous chapters, the Chinese never find these things worth worrying about, while foreigners complain about it very much.

Careful foreign travelers will find this kind of situation can always be seen in Chinese villages: a donkey with four hooves stretched out on the ground is tied to a wooden post, and the rope is looped around the donkey's neck and hung on the wooden post.But the donkey always winds the rope to the shortest limit. The donkey’s head has been twisted to 45 degrees, but it has not adjusted its body to adapt to the length of the rope. We are really worried that the donkey will dislocate its cervical spine if it keeps winding like this.Chinese donkeys are very obedient, and they don't have any resistance to struggle, so they won't hurt their necks.This is far from the temper of a donkey in the West.Although this example is not very suitable here, I believe readers should already understand that although in our eyes, the life of the Chinese people is very embarrassing, they still don't care.This fully illustrates the difference between Chinese and Westerners in terms of comfort and convenience.The Chinese know how to adapt to the environment. When faced with an irreversible dilemma, they will show great patience and endure everything silently.

Many foreigners who are familiar with the Chinese people and their way of life always say that the Chinese people are fools without enlightenment.Obviously, this unfounded judgment is outrageously wrong and extremely superficial.

Things are much better for the Chinese than they were three centuries ago, and this is the same process of change that the West has gone through.Only by understanding these can we draw a fair conclusion.Do we consider the England of Milton, Elizabeth and Shakespeare to be an uncivilized country?Although many modern people cannot bear the British life of that period.

It makes no sense to trace the causes of change in England over three centuries.It is worth mentioning that in the past 50 years, people's requirements for a comfortable and convenient life have become higher and higher.If we go back in time and we go back to the time of our grandfathers or even great-grandfathers, we might think about whether we are worth living and so on.But the Chinese don't, the same era, the same people, their standards of comfort and convenience have not changed at all.

Unless new circumstances arise, these standards will inevitably undergo some changes.But in any case, these standards are not something modern Westerners can get used to.

(End of this chapter)