Golden Lilies

by Eileen Goudge

  A clever bad man is like vile characters scrawled in ink of gold, and should be thrown aside as fit only for the braziers.

  He is handsome in my daughter’s eyes; but I say virtue is within the man, not upon his skin. He fascinates my younger sons with his philosophy and his teahouse oratory. I do not like philosophy, it is marked with the stamp of infidelity and irreligion. It is rarely that a man devotes himself to it without robbing himself of his faith, and casting off the restraints of his religion; or, if they do not lose it utterly, they so adulterate it with their philosophic writings, so full of vain and delusive reasonings, that it is impossible to separate the false from the true. The reading of philosophic writings should be forbidden to our young folk, just as the slippery banks of a river are forbidden to one who knows not how to swim. I will have none of them in our library, nor will I allow their father to read them where his sons can see him. The snake charmer should not touch the serpents before his child’s eyes, knowing that the child will try to imitate him in all things.

  It is “as pouring water in a frog’s face” to talk to these, my children, who think a man, with words upon his lips, a sage. I say a dog is not a good dog because he is a good barker, nor should a man be considered a good man because he is a good talker; but I see only pity in their faces that their mother is so far behind the times. These boys of ours are so attracted by the glimpses they have had of European civilization, that they look down upon their own nationality. They have been abroad only long enough to take on the veneer of Western education; it is a half-and-half knowledge; and it is these young men who become the discontented ones of China. When they return they do not find employment immediately, since they have grown out of touch with their country and their country’s customs. They feel that they should begin at the top of the ladder, instead of working up slowly, rung by rung, as their fathers did before them. They must be masters all at once, not realizing that, even with their tiny grains of foreign knowledge, they have not yet experience to make them leaders of great enterprises or of men; yet they know too much to think of going back into their father’s shop.

  I realize that the students who go abroad from China have many difficulties to overcome. It is hard to receive their information and instruction in a language not their mother tongue. They have small chance to finish their education by practical work in bank or shop or factory. They get a mass of book knowledge and little opportunity to practice the theories they learn, and they do not understand that textbook knowledge is nearly all foreign to their country and to the temperament of their race. I often ask, when looking at my son, what is his gain? I presume it is in securing a newer, broader point of view, an ability to adjust himself to modern conditions, and a wider sympathy with the movements of the world.

  China has for centuries been lost to the world by reason of her great exclusion, her self-satisfaction and blind reliance upon the ways marked out for her by sages of other days. These young men, with the West in their eyes, are coming back to shock their fathers’ land into new channels. The process may not be pleasant for us of the old school, but quite likely it is necessary. Yet, I feel deep within me, as I look at them, that these new Westernized Easterners with their foreign ways and clever English are not to be the final saviors of China. They are but the clarion voices that are helping to awake the slumbering power. China must depend upon the firmer qualities of the common people, touched with the breath of the West. ...

  In no country is real learning held in higher esteem than in China. It is the greatest characteristic of the nation that, in every grade of society, education is considered above all else. Why, then, should our young people be ashamed of their country’s learning? Instead of always quoting Byron, Burns, or Shelley, as do my son and daughter, let them repeat the beautiful words of Tu Fu, Li Po, Po Chu-i, our poets of the golden age. The Chinese have devoted themselves to the cultivation of literature for a longer period by some thousands of years than any existing nation. The people who lived at the time of our ancestors, the peoples of Egypt, the Greeks, the Romans, have disappeared ages ago and have left only their histories writ in book or stone. The Chinese alone have continued to give the world their treasures of thought these five thousand years. To literature and to it alone they look for the rule to guide them in their conduct. To them all writing is most sacred. The very pens and papers used in the making of their books have become objects of veneration. Even our smallest village is provided with a scrap box into which every bit of paper containing words or printed matter is carefully placed, to await a suitable occasion when it may be reverently burned.

  Change is now the order of the day, educationally as well as politically. We do not hear the children shouting their tasks at the top of their voices, nor do they learn by heart the thirteen classics, sitting on their hard benches within the simple rooms with earthen floor, where the faint light comes straggling through the unglazed windows on the boy who hopes to gain the prize that will lead him to the great Halls of Examination at Peking. If, while there, he is favored by the God of Learning and passes the examination, he will come back to his village an honor to his province, and all his world will come and do him reverence, from the viceroy in his official chair to the meanest worker in the fields. These old-time examinations are gone, the degrees that were our pride have been abolished, the subjects of study in the schools have been completely changed. The privileges that were once given our scholars, the social and political offices that were once open to the winner of the highest prize, have been thrown upon the altar of modernity. They say it is a most wise move and leads to the greater individualism, which is now the battle cry of China. The fault of the old examination, we are told, is the lack of original ideas that might be expressed by a student. He must give the usual interpretations of the classics. Now the introduction of free thought and private opinion has produced in China an upheaval in men’s minds. The new scholars may say what they think wisest, and they even try to show that Confucius was at heart a staunch republican, and that Mencius only thinly veiled his sentiments of modern philosophy.

  Perhaps the memory work of the Chinese education was wrong; but it served its purpose once, if tales are true.

  It is said that many hundreds of years ago, the founder of the Chinese dynasty, the man of pride who styled himself Emperor the First, conceived the idea of destroying all literature that was before his reign, so he might be regarded by posterity as the founder of the Chinese Empire. It is believed by many Chinese scholars that this wicked thing was done, and that not a single perfect copy of any book escaped destruction. He even went so far as to bury alive five hundred of the best scholars of the land, that none might remain to write of this cruel deed. But the classics had been too well learned by the scholars, and were reproduced from memory to help form the minds of China for many tens of years. This could be done today if a similar tragedy were enacted. Thousands of boys have committed the great books to heart, and this storing in the mind of enormous books has developed in our race a marvelous memory, if, as others say, it has taken away their power of thinking for themselves.

  Which is the best? Only time will tell. But we are told that the literati of China, the aristocracy of our land, must go. Yet, as of old, it is the educated men who will move China. Without them, nothing can be done, for the masses will respect education and the myriads will blindly follow a leader whom they feel to be a true scholar; and it will be hard to change the habits of a people who have been taught for centuries that education is another word for officialdom.

  This new education, in my mind, must not be made so general; it must be made more personal. Three things should be taken into account: who the boy is, where he is, and where he is going. It is not meet to educate the son of my gatekeeper the same as my son. He should be a good workman, the best of his kind, better to fill the place to which the gods have called him. Give our boys the modern education, if we must, but remember and respect the lifework each may have to follow. Another thing we shou
ld remember: The progress in the boy’s worldly knowledge should not free his intelligence without teaching him self-control. That is fatal for our Eastern race. Let him learn, in his books and in his laboratories, that he molds his destiny by his acts later in life, and thus gains true education, the education of the soul as well as of the mind.

  I have written you a sermon, but it is a subject on which we mothers are thinking much. It is before us daily, brought to our courtyards by our sons and daughters, and we see the good and the evil of trying to reach at a single bound the place at which other nations have at last arrived after centuries of weary climbing.

  I must go to the women’s quarters and stop their chattering. Oh, Mother of mine, why did you send to me that priest of yours?

  Kwei-li

  18

  Dear Mother,

  I must introduce you to your new daughter-in-law. Yes, I can see you start. I will tell you quickly. Your son has not taken to himself another wife, but it is I, Kwei-li, who should be made known to you anew. Kwei-li, the wife of the Governor of Kiang-su, who has become so foreignized that the mother of her husband would never know her. If things keep on the path they have gone for these last few moons, I fully expect you will see me with that band of women who are making such a great outcry for their rights and freedom. I cannot even explain them to you, as you would not understand.

  My last adventure in the ways of the modern woman is in relation to the courtship of my son. Tang-si, my second son, is in love; and I, his mother, am aiding and abetting him, and allowing him to see his sweetheart in the foreign way. I know you will blush when you read this; but I have been in the hands of the gods and allowed not to speak of “custom,” or propriety, and when I have tried to reason with my son and talk to him regarding what is seemly, he laughs at me and calls me pet names, and rubs my hair the wrong way and says I am his little mother. I knew that astounding fact years ago, and still I say that is no reason why I should go against all customs and traditions of my race.

  I told him I was taught that men and women should not sit together in the same room, nor keep their wedding apparel in the same place, nor even cleanse them in the same utensils. They should not look upon each other, or hand a thing directly from man to woman. I was taught that it was seemly and showed a maidenly reserve to observe a certain distance in my relations even with my husband or my brothers, but I have found that the influence of reason upon love is like that of a raindrop upon the ocean, “one little mark upon the water’s face and then it disappears.”

  Now I will tell you all about it. Tang-si came to me one day, and after speaking of many things of no importance, he finally said, “Mother, will you ask Kah-li, Wu Tai-tai’s daughter, here to tea?” I said, “Why, is she a friend of your sister’s?” He said, while looking down upon the floor, “I do not know, but—but—she is a special friend of mine.” I looked at him in amazement. “You have seen her?” “Yes, many times. I want you to ask her to the house, where we may have a chance to talk.” I sat back in my chair and looked at him, and said within myself, “Was ever a mother blessed with such children; what may I next expect?” He gave me a quick look, and came over and took my hand in his, and said, “Now, Mother, do not get excited, and don’t look as if the Heavens were going to fall. I—well—you make it hard to tell you, but I want to marry Kah-li, and I would like a chance of seeing her as the foreign men see their wives before they marry them.” I said, quite calmly for me, “You mean you are choosing your wife instead of allowing your father and mother to choose her?” He said, “Why, yes; I have to live with her and I ought to choose her.” I said nothing—what is the use? I have learned that my menfolk have strong minds, which they certainly must have inherited from your honorable family. I said that first I would speak to her mother, and if she approved of her daughter’s seeing my son in this most unbecoming manner, I would do whatsoever he wished in the matter. I could not wait, but went at once to the house of Wu Tai-tai. We discussed the matter over many cups of tea, and we saw that we are but clouds driven by the winds and we must obey.

  She has been here for tea, and I am charmed with her. She is as pretty as a jewel of pure jade; I do not blame my son. She has laughter in her dancing eyes and seems as if she would sing away from year to year and see life always through the golden gleam of happy days. She is respectful and modest, and now I feel she is one of the family and I ask her to join us in all our feastings. She came to the feast when we burned the Kitchen God, and joined with us in prayers as he ascended to the great Spirit to tell him of our actions in the past year. I am afraid our young people do not believe much in this small God of the Household, who sits so quietly upon his shelf above the kitchen stove for twelve long months, watching all that goes on within the home, then gives his message for good or ill to Him above; but they are too respectful to say anything against it—in my hearing. They must respect the old gods until they find something better to take their place.

  I do not know but that my son is right in this question of his courtship. It is pretty to see as they wander through the gardens, while we mothers sit upon the balconies and gossip. Their love seems to be as pure as spotless rice and “so long as color is color and life is life will the youth with his sublime folly wait for the meeting of his loved one.” What matter if the winter days will come to them or if “the snow is always sure to blot out the garden”—today is spring, and love is love and youth is happy.

  Your shameless daughter,

  Kewi-li

  Kwei-li

  19

  My Dear Mother,

  Your gifts, which came by the hand of Tuang-fang, are most welcome. We have already drunk the sun-dried tea, and it brings to thought the sight of the long, laden trays of the fragrant leaves as they lie in the sun on the mountainside. The rose wine we will use on occasions of special rejoicing; and I thank you again for the garments, which will bring comfort to so many in the coming days of cold. I was glad to see Tuang-fang, and sorry to hear that he, with his brother, are going so far away from home in search of labor. Is there not work enough for our men in the province without going to that land of heat and sickness? ...

  The more I come out from the courtyard and see our people, the more I admire them; I see the things that are so often lost sight of by those of other lands who seek to study them. They are a philosophical race and bear the most dreadful losses and calamities with wonderful bravery. Nothing daunts them. Behold the family of Tuang-fang: they saw their home ruined at the time of flood and began on the morrow to build on the remaining foundations. They saw their fields burned up by drought, and took their winter clothing to the pawnshop to get money to buy seed for the coming spring. They did not complain as long as they could get sufficient food to feed their bodies and the coarse blue cloth with which to clothe them, and when these failed they sent their three strong sons, the best of the family, to the rubber plantations of the south.

  We hear so much in the papers here of the “Yellow Peril.” If there is a Yellow Peril, it lies in the fact that our men are ready to labor unceasingly for a wage on which most Europeans would starve, and on that pittance they manage to save and become rich and prosperous. They have gone into other lands wherever they have found an opening, and some of the southern countries, like Singapore and the Philippines, owe much of their commercial progress to our people. They are honest and industrious, and until the foreigner began to feel the pinch of competition, until he found that he must work all day and not sleep the hours away if he would be in the race with the man from the Eastern land, he had nothing to say about the character of the man from China. But as soon as he felt the pressure of want because of his sloth, he began to find that the “yellow man” was vicious, and soon his depravity became a byword. The Chinese were abused because of their virtues rather than their vices, for things for which all other nations are applauded—love of work and economy. ...

  I think, hearing the gossip from your son’s courtyard, that when China is again peaceful
, there will be more chance for the men within her borders, who can then stay beside their fires and earn their food. Our land is a land of fertile soil, of rich minerals, and great rivers. It is said that there are millions and millions of acres on which food or other products can be grown, and that a great part of China may be made one vast garden. The German scientist who is trying to get a coal mine concession from the government told my husband that there were tens of millions of tons of coal of the best quality in China, and that the single province of Shansi could supply the entire world for thousands of years. No wonder the Germans are looking with longing eyes on China! But we want these riches and this labor for our people. If it is worth the time of men of other countries to come to this far-off land in search of what lies beneath our soil, it is worth our while to guard it and keep it for our own.

  We hear the news of battles and of secret plottings, and I am worried about my son, who is in Canton, the province that seems to be the center of the rebellion and the breeding place of plots and treachery. I wonder what the outcome of it all will be; if after all this turmoil and bloodshed will China really become a different nation? It is hard to change the habits of a nation, and I think that China will not be changed by this convulsion. The real Chinese will be the same passive, quiet, slow-thinking, and slow-moving toiler, not knowing or caring whether his country is a republic or whether he is ruled by the Son of Heaven. These patient, plodding men of China have held together for countless thousands of years; and our government, even the government we are trying so hard to overturn and mold on Western lines, must have suited the country and the people, because nothing ever persists generation after generation, century after century, without being suited to its environment and more or less adapted to the changes that time always brings.