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Tides from the West, a Chinese Autobiography, written by Zhang Menglin, read by Tang Daming. Chapter 5, Trouble Brewing. It was customary during the New Year days for vendors to come to the village to sell pictures, some depicting important or thrilling happenings in the country, others showing theatrical performances. During one New Year vacation, the attention of the children was drawn to a set of pictures which were rather novel to them. The multicolored scenes showed the Sino-Japanese War of 1894. One was of a naval battle in the North China Sea. One of the Japanese battleships had struck several large pottery jugs filled with gunpowder which exploded and set the ship on fire, and it was sinking. There were in the picture hundreds of such jugs floating on the sea. In another picture, Japanese prisoners of war were seen locked in chains, and some kept in cages. A great victory for China. It existed only on paper, but we children believed it. As I grew older, I began to understand that China had been defeated, that we had lost Taiwan, that our navy had been destroyed by the Japanese, and Korea torn away. Within a short span of nine years, China had lost three dependencies, first in though China, then Burma, and now Korea. One summer day, as the sun was setting, a farm helper was seen running breathlessly out of my father's study. He had heard a bell ring there without seeing anyone to cause the sound. To him, it must be a ghost, but it was the clock striking seven in the evening. From time immemorial, the villagers had been getting their fire by striking a steel blade on flint. Someone brought a few boxes of matches from Shanghai. The grown-ups were delighted with this easy method. The children loved the firefly glow obtained by scratching a match on the palm in dark corners. It was called self-coming light, or ocean light, because it came from across the sea. Clocks were unnecessary, for what is the use of keeping exact time in the village? What difference would it make to be two or three hours too late or too early? The country folk counted their time in days and months, not in minutes or hours. Matches were a luxury, had we not caught along nicely with our steel blades and flints, but when we came to kerosene, it was a different proposition. This made night as brilliant as day. There was a world of difference between this and the dim light of a vegetable oil lamp. The Standard Oil Company, known as Meifu, was the torchbearer that was leading China out of the dark ages to modernization. People kept matches and clocks as curiosities, but kerosene as a necessity. But if kerosene was a necessity, wasn't the telegraph a necessity to take the place of a foot messenger and steamboats to take the place of rowboats or sailboats, and so it went. Few could grasp the significance of one tiny segment of the vast circle. While we played innocently with clocks and matches and enjoyed our kerosene lamps, we never realized that we were toying with a fire that would someday set all China aflame. These were the signs of an impending volcanic eruption which destroyed peace and order, first in my village and others like it, and eventually in the whole country. Christian missionaries played their part in introducing foreign manufacturers into the interior. Braving hardship, disease, and personal danger, they went to almost every hamlet in the land to save the souls of the heathen Chinese. As a matter of course, they took kerosene, cloth, clocks, soap, etc. with them into the interior. People in general were more interested in these things than in the gospel. They opened up a new horizon of wants for the Chinese people. A market for foreign goods was thus created unintentionally by missionaries whose real purpose was to preach the gospel of Christ. I do not mean that the missionaries were chiefly responsible for the growth of modern commercialism in China, but they played their part, a considerable part, for they penetrated the vast country to every corner. The major role of course was played by the merchant ships and gunboats of the western powers. It was the Christian missions, coupled with gunboats, that forced the old literary and agricultural China on the road to modern industrial and commercial life. With my own eyes, I saw the growth of a new class of comparators, middlemen between the Chinese and foreign merchants and their satellites, and the dying of the old class of literati which I was about to join and from which I eventually sneaked away. The foreign merchants brought their goods to seaports such as Shanghai, Tianjin and others. Through Chinese comparators, they were distributed to cities in the interior and from there, to the towns and villages. People were attracted by the easier and larger sums of money they could make. The more enterprising and fortunate entered the new business of dealing directly or indirectly in foreign goods. Some became very rich and many others well to do. The less fortunate were left behind to go on tilling their land or to remain in their old trades. As the land was less remunerative and the old trades fast deteriorating in the face of foreign competition, the old economic structure began rapidly to break down. Naturally, a number of people were thrown out of economic gear. These unfortunates, jealous of the newly rich and neither dissatisfied with their old occupations or deprived of them, became desperate. The flood was surging against the water gate, the autumn flood, symbolic of the turmoil that was to banish peace from my village. One autumn afternoon as I was running in the fields I heard the frantic sounding of a gong. As the crier approached our village I heard his cry that the dyke had broken through and the flood was coming. I ran back home as fast as I could and told everyone I met on the way. Everyone got busy at once. We got ready boats, wooden bathtubs or anything that would float waiting for the calamity to arrive. Some even chose tall trees for their future abode. None of us slept well that night. The next morning the flood entered our gate and the spearhead of water glided like a giant serpent into our courtyard. By noon children had begun to row in bathtubs in the hall. The dyke was repaired with sandbags and the Tau'u River ceased to overflow. The flood stayed in our village and surrounding districts for about a week, then gradually emptied into the lower lands and disappeared through the rivers into the sea and all the crops with it. After a week or so late in the afternoon a large boat was seen applying toward our village with many people aboard. It docked near our house and they began to disembark. As a precaution we closed our gates. They stormed the main gate with heavy granite slabs and finally it crashed down like a avalanche. The crowd forced their way in. The leader, musseler and heavy built with his cue round the top of his head came into the courtyard with his followers after him. He shouted, We are hungry and want to borrow rice. The crowd joined in chorus. They searched the barn but did not touch it. They wanted to borrow. Finally through the mediation of a neighboring farmer several bushels of rice were loaned to them and they embarked with it and sailed away. This was the first intimation of troubles to come. One incident after another of the same kind but of more serious nature happened in neighboring villages. It started with borrowing but ended in robbing. It spread like fire and the scanned government forces in the country could not stop it. Moreover, robbery of foodstuffs was not liable to capital punishment and only capital punishment could have checked it, at least temporarily. The thing dragged on till winter and then the first robbery of a felonious nature took place in the village of the Swins. The victim was a mistress swin who owned a prosperous lumber business in Shanghai. His father had amassed a fortune in that port by doing construction work for foreign hongs or companies. It was a cold winter night and everybody had gone to bed early to keep warm. Someone noticed through the window against the background of darkness a column of torch lights moving along the highway toward the village of the Swins. As the lights came near the village, a volley of shots was heard. It was bandits. They forced open the gates of Mr. Swin's house and seized all the treasure they could carry. Valuable fur coats, silver pieces, jewels, etc. They took Mr. Swin, tied him to the end of a long bamboo pole and thrust him into the canal. People found him the next morning by pulling up the pole. Snakes of robbery spread through the villages. Overnight, the peace and tranquility that the villagers had been enjoying for centuries vanished. Night after night, we could not sleep in peace. My father bought revolvers and outmoded guns from Shanghai. All of us, including children, began to practice shooting. Even the burrs had no peace, for we took them as our living targets. We went to bed by turns, some keeping a night watch. When we heard dogs barking, we fired a few shots in the air as a warning to pandas, real or imaginary. To save ammunition, we often mixed firecrackers with gunshots. This sort of thing could not go on indefinitely. Reluctantly, my father gathered together the members of his family and moved to Shanghai. Meanwhile, during the two years previous to our move, I had continued my education at a neighboring provincial city. When I was still studying at the family school, my father asked me one day whether I would like to enter business as a career or prepare for government service. My two elder brothers had both decided for the latter. Father said he would like me to think it over carefully before coming to a decision. The honor of service to the state had attracted young people for generations. It was only natural that I should be strongly inclined to it. On the other hand, the life of the newly rich, who could enjoy the luxury of the many new and ingenious imported manufacturers, was also a temptation. The choice between honor and wealth was more or less contingent upon the ideas and ideals already instilled into one's mind. I had been told that the people of China fell into four classes. The highest and governing class was the scholars. Next in order came the farmers, who supplied the people with food. The artisans, the third class, manufactured goods for the use of the people. The last were the traders, who transported goods from where there was plenty to where there was a scarcity. Each class had its function to perform in society, but the scholars were the governors of all. So, theoretically speaking, if philosophers were not to be kings, they were at least to be ministers of the state. As there was no hereditary aristocracy in China, the scholars were aristocrats not by birth, but by personal endeavor. It was proverbial that a shouzai, or person possessing the first degree by having passed the imperial civil examinations for that initial degree, was an embryo prime minister to the imperial court. Then, why should I go into business, which later in life would exclude me from the class of the learned aristocracy? Thus, my mind was said to learning. Of course, I understood only vaguely what it meant. To me, it was only a stepping stone to something higher up. There were many farmers in our village. There were also a number of businessmen who traded in Shanghai and brought back many interesting things, pen knives, whistles, rubber balls, dolls, pop guns, watches, and the like. As regard the artisans, an elder of our clan was a carpenter, as also were his sons. A distant uncle was a silversmith who made rings, bracelets, and trinkets to adorn the ladies of the villages. Of the scholars, another uncle, my mother's brother, was one. He had passed the first degree, but stopped short of the other two. There were carved panels with golden inscriptions hanging high in our ancestral hall and tall flagpoles standing before it in honor of clansmen who had been successful in the examinations. I remember that one day the magistrate of our xian came to a neighboring village to probe a murder case. Did I not see the golden button at the top of his red tasseled hat and the string of bees round his neck? Did I not see how his sedan chair was lined with green felt and borne by four persons, each wearing a tall, black, cone-shaped hat like a gigantic ice-cream cone with a feather tilting from the pointed top, and how, as he proceeded in his chair, a pair of gongs kept sounding to announce the presence of his excellency and that the people must show respect. He was the governor of our district and had, as it were, power over our lives and fortunes. What stuff was he made of? A scholar. Yes, I knew what a scholar was and the advantage of being one. He might climb up, rung by rung, to the top of the ladder and some day become a very high official, sipping imperial tea in the majestic palace at Peking. Can the reader blame a village boy like me whose depths had never carried him more than a few miles from his own village for aspiring to be a scholar? My childish mind pondered the imperial honors which were the scholars do. I imagined myself growing larger and larger in importance year by year, passing one examination after another from the lowest to the highest, till one day I should be made a high official, much higher than the magistrate, attired in an embroidered gown with a red button on my hat and a long string of bees and all the other imperial honors imaginable, coming back home before the eyes of the awe-inspired folk of the village. How wonderful. All these pictures unrolled enticingly. What a bright future lay before me, but only if I applied myself to the study of the classics. Again, my early schooling, although distasteful to me, had instilled into my mind somewhat vaguely the importance of learning above everything else. Officials of the state were selected through civil examinations and only people who possessed learning could expect to pass them. Officials were honored because learning itself was honored in China. My own decision was finally to acquire more learning in preparation for the civil examination, to which my father readily agreed. As our family school was inadequate for my further education, I was sent to an advanced school in Shaoxing, the prefectural capital, about forty miles from the village. My two elder brothers had gone there the year before. We went in a small slender boat, propelled by a long oar pushed by foot power on one side and a short one held by hand as a helm on the other. Along the way I saw on the riverbanks many pilos standing in rows, pillared arches erected in memory of virtuous widows. River towns appeared at almost regular intervals with their busy traffic on both land and water. We started early in the morning and arrived at the prefectural capital next day in the afternoon after stopping for a night at a large town. The Sino Occidental School, as its name implied, offered not only Chinese studies but also courses in Occidental subjects. This was a new departure in Chinese education. Here my mind began to come into contact with Western knowledge, however poorly explained and superficial. My acquaintance with the West had been limited to imported manufactured articles. A mind filled with gods, goddesses, ghosts, fairies and time-worn traditions was now setting forth to meet some mental imports from the West. The first and most surprising thing I learned in this school was that the earth is round like a ball. To me it was decidedly flat. I was dumbfounded on being further told that lightning is created by electricity and is not the reflection from the mirror of a goddess. That thunder is a byproduct of the same electricity and not the beating of a drum by the god of thunder. In elementary physics I learned how rain is formed. It made me give up the idea that a gigantic dragon showers it from his mouth like a fountain high above in the clouds. To understand the meaning of combustion was to banish the idea of fire gods from my mind. One after another the gods worshipped by my people melted away in my mind like snowmen under the sun. It was the beginning of what little science I know and the end of animism in me. The habit I had formed in my simple nature study in the village of observing and reasoning without knowing the significance of it was carried over into the school. As before I was quite good in reasoning but deficient in memory and therefore always ready to give up what I had in memory for new ideas that seemed reasonable. The major part of the curriculum however still consisted of literary studies, Chinese literature, classics and history. There was a considerable amount of memory work to do. As I was not good at it, my name always appeared in the lower middle of the school examination list. I was mediocre in the school, falling far short of brilliance. This was the opinion of my teachers and so it was my own opinion of myself. Foreign languages were divided into three sections, English, French and Japanese. I took English and later also Japanese. My Japanese teacher was a Mr. Nakagawa from whom I learned a correct pronunciation. English was taught us by a Chinese teacher and his pronunciation of the language was so incorrect that in later years I had to spend much painful time unlearning it. He started us off wrong at the very beginning, even mispronouncing the alphabet. An extreme example is the letter Z which he called Yucai. In the school in 1898, I heard that Kang Youwei and Liang Qichao, two liberals from South China who had become unofficial advisors to Emperor Guangxu, had succeeded in persuading the emperor to abolish the civil examinations and establish instead schools along western lines throughout China. The old scholars were shocked by the news. But the reform was short-lived. The Empress Delwiger came back into power, Kang Youwei and Liang Qichao fled to Japan. China was to go on along the old line. When I came home for the vacation, I saw the imperial addict printed in bold letters in both the Chinese and Manchu languages on a large yellow paper, posted on walls in a busy street ordering the arrest of the two scholar statesmen. It looked as if the reform was buried forever. Shaoxing is a city full of historical interest. It was the capital of the ancient kingdom of Yue, which lasted from 2068 to 334 B.C. In 494 B.C., during the reign of King Gao Zhen, Yue was defeated by the kingdom of Wu with his capital at Suzhou. The king of Yue adopted a 20-year plan by which, within 10 years, he made his country prosperous and populous, and in another 10, succeeded in training his people in the arts of war. Meanwhile, he discarded all the comforts that belonged to a king, taking very coarse food and sleeping on a rough bed, while the king of Wu reveled in luxuries. At the end of 20 years, in 473 B.C., King Gao Zhen delivered a deathblow at Wu. This historical episode has been proverbial ever since, serving as an example for all who hope to rise again after a defeat, whether in private enterprise or national affairs. It illustrates patience, courage, endurance, self-denial, and careful planning. I absorbed this lesson in history right on the spot, and no one could help being impressed by it. Here also the South Song emperors who ruled between 1127-1276 AD made their sojourn when the Tartars had overrun North China and the capital had to be moved to Hangzhou. Their imperial mausoleums could be seen not far from the prefectural capital. This district, with Shaoxing as its center, supplied lawyers for the whole country. In every yamen or government office throughout the country, large or small, no business could be carried on without a Shaoxing lawyer. And Shaoxing wines were the best in China. Famous scholars, philosophers, poets, and calligraphers who made history in their respective fields were born and lived in the prefecture of Shaoxing. It contained six districts, of which my own Yuyao was one. Shaoxing was also famous for its beautiful scenery. Winding creeks, bridge-spanned canals, rivers, mirrored lakes, and gentle hills together formed a landscape which scholars and philosophers found congenial. I studied in Shaoxing for two years. My mental horizon rapidly widened. I was made to understand the significance of the Sino-Japanese War of 1894. Japan's victory over China was due to the former's adoption of Western learning. Emperor Guangxu's reforms were inspired by Japan's success in the war. China was to make her erstwhile enemy her teacher. This was why the school offered a course in the Japanese language. At the end of two years when bandits made life in the village untenable, my father took me to Shanghai with the rest of the family. My eldest brother had died a year earlier. Here I was put temporarily in a Catholic school to continue my English study. The instruction was given by a French brother. The pupils were told to call him Blada. As he was a foreigner, his pronunciation of the language, I imagined, must be good. It was obviously different from that of the Chinese teacher. For instance, he taught us to say dat instead of zed and blada instead of blodder. The reader can imagine what curious English we acquired, but I did not stay long in the school. As there was no suitable school in Shanghai for me to go, father sent my brother to learn English from an American lady and made me study under him. He thus acted as a comparador of English teaching. I was much dissatisfied with the arrangement, but my father thought it a very clever scheme because it would save money. Shanghai by 1899 was a small city with a few thousand arrogant foreigners. But the city was well governed with clean, wide streets and electric or gas lights. I thought the foreigners were wonderful. They knew the secret of electricity. They had invented the steam engine and built steamboats. They took the place of my old gods who had melted away in the face of my instruction in science and occupied my mind as new ones. At the same time, they served as new devils too, for their arrogance, coupled with the clubs of the policemen, frightened me. In the list of regulations displayed at the entrance of a park on the banks of the Huangpu River, Chinese as well as dogs were forbidden admission. This said much. The foreigner appeared to my mind half divine and half devilish, double-faced and many-handed like Vishnu, holding an electric light, a steamboat and a pretty doll in one set of hands and a policeman's club, revolver and handful of opium in the other. When one looked at his bright side, he was an angel. On the dark side, he was a demon. Modern civilization, as viewed by the Chinese in China's recent history, has been either one way or the other at different periods or among different groups of individuals. Li Hongzhang saw the importance of the dark and devilish side and built a navy to beat the devil by his own weapons. Emperor Guangxu saw the importance of the bright and godly side and tried to establish a new school system. The emperor's delviger and the boxers saw the curse of the devilish side and tried to oust the devils with China's own obsolete arms. The trouble was that the god was strong for the very reason that at times he could be devilish. The devil was powerful because at times he could be godly. He was one and indivisible. You had either to take him as a whole or not at all. Was not Japan the example? Make your erstwhile enemy your teacher. We lived in Shanghai for about two years and this home too we left hurriedly one night when we were informed that the empress delviger had sent instructions to viceroys throughout the country to put all foreigners to death. It was 1900 and the beginning of the boxer war in north China. The boxers were a fanatical cult claiming magical powers. Gymnastics formed a part of their program, hence the name by which they became known. They meant to destroy all foreign manufactured goods and kill every person found in possession of them. They wanted to kill all the foreigners who brought in these terrible things and destroyed their trade. Churches, schools, missionaries and Christians were all guilty of introducing these poisonous manufacturers into China. Get rid of these people by killing them with swords, knives, magic. Destroy foreign properties by setting them on fire. The imperial court for its own part wanted to destroy all the crazy ideas of foreign origin introduced by Kang Youwei and Liang Qichao so that nothing like the reforms of 1898 could happen again. Thus the boxers wanted to get rid of the manufactured goods and the emperor delviger and her court wanted to get rid of foreign mental goods. Both came from one source, the foreigners. Kill them all. In the beginning of the industrial revolution in England people smashed the machines which destroyed their livelihood. The boxers went a bit too far. They destroyed the human machinery too. In the south people looked at the foreigner in a different light. They welcomed foreign manufacturers but did not understand that it was this very thing that caused a banditry. They put the blame on the obnoxious taxes of the imperial government and the corruption and incompetence of its officials. So they wanted a revolution. The people and the imperial court in the north were right in holding the foreigners responsible for destroying their trades but found a wrong solution in smashing the human machinery. The people of the south had a wrong reason in holding the imperial government responsible for their plight but did the right thing in starting a revolution. Banditry seems to consist of a series of accidents, illogical reasoning, and unexpected results in which the great men appearing on the scene are but the instruments of fate. Foreigners cursed banditry in China but did not know that their own manufacturers had caused it in the beginning. In my childhood days, we all feared tigers, ghosts, and bandits, but all were imaginary. We only saw them in picture books. Then, suddenly, the bandit appeared in real life, as if a tiger should dash into your house or a ghost chase you. Finally, we dreaded the bandits and forgot about tigers and ghosts. What you just heard is Tides from the West, a Chinese autobiography, written by Cheng Min and published by the Foreign Language Teaching and Research Press. Some names and terminologies in this book have been updated per contemporary usages.