Changing Chinese: Western Images of China

Author: E.A. Ross (USA), translated by Gong Maohong and Zhang Hao
Publisher:
Publishing Date: Not available
Features: A Glimpse of China China possesses many features of medieval Europe. All cities were walled, and to this day, these walls and gates remain intact and effectively serve their purpose. The Manchus, who ruled China, always stationed their military camps in fortified cities with walls, and in the event of unexpected rebellions, they would retreat to these camps for refuge. The streets of the cities were narrow, winding, uneven, dirty, and smelled foul. In Northern China, hard-surfaced carriages used for passenger transport moved constantly along the streets, pulled by donkeys. However, in areas where rice was grown, people did not feed donkeys, so in these cities, people had to walk or use hand-pushed carts. There were almost no regulations for maintaining urban public transportation, so the streets were occupied by individual merchants, making them almost impassable. Shopkeepers set up counters in front of their shelves, while stalls made of baskets and winnowing baskets were arranged on both sides of the streets. Artisans with labor tools filled the streets, making a six-foot-wide street extremely crowded. If it were not for official regulations requiring a passage to be left for sedan chairs passing through, the streets would be even narrower. The narrow streets were always crowded, giving travelers the impression that the cities were densely populated and highly concentrated. The architecture in the cities was mostly single-story buildings, except for Beijing, where other cities in China were very small. Foreign travelers, in pursuit of literary effect, arbitrarily exaggerated the population of Chinese cities in their travel accounts. These unreliable statistics were the result of travelers' random guesses. Only recently were police officers introduced to maintain public order in the cities. They wore khaki uniforms and patrolled the streets with batons. However, their capabilities were never proven during riots. In Guangzhou, the soldiers people saw were listless, barefoot, and had kind faces. They absolutely did not embody the authority and dignity of the law. There was no public water supply in the cities. In cities located by rivers, untreated river water served as the residents' public water supply. Each day, people responsible for fetching water delivered it to households, and the water poured from buckets made the stone steps leading to the river wet all day long. When the fetched water was too cloudy to drink, people generally stirred it with bamboo tubes fitted with small holes and containing alum pieces, allowing the water to slowly clarify. P1-2