Across China on Foot by Edwin John Dingle (spiritual books to read .TXT) 📕

But it was not to be for long.

Nantien is, or was, to be a fort, but the little place bears no outward military evidences whatever which would lead one to believe it. It is populated chiefly by Shans. The bulk of these interesting people now live split up into a great number of semi-independent states, some tributary to Burma, some to China, and some to Siam; and yet the man-in-the-street knows little about them. One cannot mistake them, especially the women, with their peculiar Mongolian features and sallow complexions and characteristic head-dress. The men are less distinguishable, probably, generally speaking, but the rough cotton turban instead of the round cap with the knob on the top alone enables one more readily to pick them out from the Chinese. Short, well-built and strongly made, the women strike one particularly as being a hardy, healthy set of people.

Shans are recognized to be a peaceful people, but a village squabble outside Chin-ch'eng, in which I took part, is one of the exceptions to prove the rule.

It did not take the eye of a hawk or the ear of a pointer to recognize that a big row was in full progress. Shan women roundly abused the men, and Shan men, standing afar off, abused their women. A few Chinese who looked on had a few words to say to these "Pai Yi"[BD] on the futility of these everyday squabbles, whilst a few Shans, mistaking me again for a foreign official, came vigorously to me pouring out their souls over the whole affair. We were all visibly at cross purposes. I chimed in with my infallible "Puh tong, you stupid ass, puh tong" (I don't understand, I don't understand); and what with the noise of the disputants, the Chinese bystanders, my own men (they were all acutely disgusted with every Shan in the district, and plainly showed it, because they could not be understood in speech) and myself all talking at once, and the dogs who mistook me for a beggar, and tried to get at close grips with me for being one of that fraternity, it was a veritable Bedlam and Tower of Babel in awfullest combination. At length I raised my hand, mounted a boulder in the middle of the road, and endeavored to pacify the infuriated mob. I shouted harshly, I brandished by bamboo in the air, I gesticulated, I whacked two men who came near me. At last they stopped, expecting me to speak. Only a look of stupidest unintelligibility could I return, however, and had to roar with laughter at the very foolishness of my position up on that stone. Soon the multitude calmed down and laughed, too. I yelled "Ts'eo," and we proceeded, leaving the Shans again at peace with all the world.

Shans have been found in many other parts, even as far north as the borders of Tibet. But a Shan, owing to the similarity of his language in all parts of Asia, differs from the Chinese or the Yün-nan tribesman in that he can get on anywhere. It is said that from the sources of the Irawadi down to the borders of Siamese territory, and from Assam to Tonkin, a region measuring six hundred miles each way, and including the whole of the former Nan-chao Empire, the language is practically the same. Dialects exist as they do in every country in the world, but a Shan born anywhere within these bounds will find himself able to carry on a conversation in parts of the country he has never heard of, hundreds of miles from his own home. And this is more than six hundred years after the fall of the Nan-chao dynasty, and among Shans who have had no real political or commercial relation with each other.[BE]

I found them a charming people, peaceful and obliging, treating strangers with kindness and frank cordiality. For the most part, they are Buddhists. The dress of the Chinese Shans, which, however, I found varied in different localities, leads one to believe that they are an exceptionally clean race, but I can testify that this is not the case. In many ways they are dirtier than the Chinese—notably in the preparation of their food. And I feel compelled to say a word here for the general benefit of future travelers. Never expect a Shan to work hard! He can work hard, and he will—when he likes, but I do not believe that even the Malay, that Nature's gentleman of the farther south, is lazier.

As servants they are failures. A European in this district, whose Chinese servant had left him, thought he would try a Shan, and invited a man to come. "Be your servant? Of course I will. I am honored." And the European thought at last he was in clover. He explained that he should want his breakfast at 6:00 a.m., and that the servant's duties would be to cut grass for the horse, go to the market to buy provisions, feed on the premises, and leave for home to sleep at 7:00 p.m. The Shan opened a large mouth; then he spoke. He would be pleased, he said, to come to work about nine o'clock; that he had several marriageable daughters still on his hands and could not therefore, and would not, cut grass; he objected going to the market in the extreme heat of the day; he could not think of eating the foreigner's food; and would go home to feed at 1:00 p.m. and leave again finally at 5:00 p.m. for the same purpose. He left before five p.m. Another man was called in. He was quite cheery, and came in and out and did what he pleased. On being asked what he would require as salary, he replied, "Oh, give me a rupee every market day, and that'll do me." The person was not in service when market day rolled round, and I hear that this European, who loves experiments of this kind, has gone back to the Chinese.

Chiu-Ch'eng (Kang-gnai) was going through a sort of New Year carousal as I entered the town, and everybody was garmented for the festival.

I had great difficulty in getting a place to stay. People allowed me to career about in search of a room, treating me with courteous indifference, but none offered to house me. At last the headman of the village appeared, and with many kindly expressions of unintelligibility led me to his house. A crowd had gathered in the street, and several women were taking from the front room the general stock-in-trade of the village ironmonger. Scores of huge iron cooking pans were being passed through the window, tables were pushed noisily through the doorway, primitive cooking appliances were being hurled about in the air, bamboo baskets came out by the dozen, and there was much else. Bags of paddy, old chairs (the low stool of the Shan, with a thirty-inch back), drawers of copper cash, brooms, a few old spears, pots of pork fat, barrels of wine (the same as I had blistered the foot of a pony with), two or three old p'u-kai, worn-out clothes, disused ladies' shoes, babies' gear, and last of all the man himself appeared. Men and women set to to clean up, an old woman clasped me to her bosom, and I was bidden to enter. New Year festivities were for the nonce neglected for the novel delight of gazing upon the inner domesticity of this traveling wonder, into his very holy of holies. I received nine invitations to dinner. I dined with mine host and his six sons.

Through the heavy evening murk a dull clangor stirred the air—the tolling of shrill bells and the beating of dull gongs, and all the hideous paraphernalia of Eastern celebrations. The populace—Shan almost to a man—were bent on seeing me, a task rendered difficult by the gathering darkness of night. Soldiers guarded the way, and there were several broken heads. They came, stared and wondered, and then passed away for others to come in shoals, laughingly, and seeming no longer to harbor the hostile feelings apparent as I entered the town.

My shaving magnifier amused them wonderfully.

There was an outcry as I entered the room after we had dined, followed by a scream of women in almost hysterical laughter. When they caught sight of me, however, a brief pause ensued, and the solemn hush, that even in a callous crowd invariably attends the actual presence of a long-awaited personage, reigned unbroken for a while; then one spoke, then another ventured to address me, and the spell of silence gave way to noise and general excitability, and the people began speedily to close upon me, anxious to get a glimpse of such a peculiar white man. Later on, when the shutters were up and the public thus kept off, the family foregathered unasked into my room, bringing with them their own tea and nuts, and laying themselves out to be entertained. My whole gear, now reduced to most meager proportions, was scrutinized by all. There were four men and five women, the usual offshoots, and the aged couple who held proprietary rights over the place. They sat on my bed, on my boxes; one of the children sat on my knee, and the ladies, seemingly of the easiest virtue, overhauled my bedclothes unblushingly. The murmuring noise of the vast expectant New Year multitude died off gradually, like the retreating surge of a distant sea, and the hot motionless atmosphere in my room, with eleven people stepping on one another's toes in the cramped area, became more and more weightily intensified. The husband of one of the women—a miserable, emaciated specimen for a Shan—came forward, asking whether I could cure his disease. I fear he will never be cured. His arm and one side of his body was one mass of sores. Before it could be seen four layers of Chinese paper had to be removed, one huge plantain leaf, and a thick layer of black stuff resembling tar. I was busy for some thirty minutes dressing it with new bandages. I then gave him ointment for subsequent dressings, whereupon he put on his coat and walked out of the room (leaving the door open as he went) without even a word of gratitude.

The Chinese pride themselves upon their gratitude. It is vigorous towards the dead and perhaps towards the emperor (although this may be doubted), but as a grace of daily life it is almost absent. I have known cases where missionaries have got up in the middle of the night to attend to poisoning cases and accidents requiring urgent treatment, have known them to attend to people at great distances from their own homes and make them better; but never a word of thanks—not even the mere pittance charged for the actual cost of medicine.

FOOTNOTES:

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