[VOL I] RICE-SELLERS AT TONG-CHANG-FOO

RICE-SELLERS AT TONG-CHANG-FOO

Cover Image: Rice Sellers at the Military Station of Tong-Chang-Foo / LiaoCheng ShanDong China / Drawn by T.Allom – ALAMY Image ID:2X3H91E

*Dongchangfu Prefecture was a prefecture in the Ming and Qing dynasties in what is now Liaocheng, Shandong Province, China.

Rice to sell! Who lacks good cheer?
Would you our rice, sir grenadier?
A bowl were well after parade;
Come, and enjoy it, in the shade.
See how it smokes – so spiced and sweet!
Will you, fair dame, my savoury treat?
Yon little master likes it well.
Season’d and smoking, – Rice to sell!

C. J. C.

SUCH scenes as this party of rice-eaters presents are frequently witnessed by travellers, more particularly along the line of the Imperial canal, on which Tong-chang-foo is situated. The military station rendering a halt for the payment of gabelle necessary, the trackers seize the opportunity to rest and refresh themselves. A guard of military-police being paraded, during the settlement of tribute by the task-master or slave-driver, the trackers seat themselves beneath an immense umbrella supported by a bamboo pillar, and are supplied by the landlady of this very primitive and very picturesque hospitium, with bowls, chopsticks, and all other requisites for the occasion. Assembled round an earthen stove, at which the rice-meal, mixed with vegetables and fried in rancid oil or animal offal, is dressed, and disengaging themselves from their cumbrous bamboo hats, some also twisting the pienza, or long queue, round their heads, they raise the bowl to the edge of the lower lip, against which they press it closely, and with the chopsticks throw in their food expeditiously, conveniently, and with an astonishing degree of cleanliness. In China, as well as in Western Europe, the pipe forms a necessary part of the labourer’s personal property; and, from the great length of this instrument amongst Orientals, when inserted in the pocket a very considerable portion always protrudes. As stations may not occur at those intervals of time or space best suited to the tracker’s relief, it is his judicious practice to carry a supply of meal in a pouch suspended at his side, along with a hard wooden spatula, such as the hostess of the great umbrella is employing, besides his accustomed chopsticks. On the ground, and close by the figure in the act of placing the chopsticks in his mouth, lie several flat boards with cords passed through them; these are the harness, or gear, which the tracker applies to his breast, to save it from the effects of too great pressure, in his slavish occupation.

It is very erroneously stated, that owing to the predominance of agricultural propensities, the paucity of pasture and meadow land, and the preference for rice to all other species of diet, animal food has been necessarily declined; pigs and sheep being the only species of quadrupeds slaughtered and eaten. That black cattle are not kept for the shambles, is solely attributable to the abhorrence of a Buddhist to slaying oxen; the antiquity of this religion, therefore, sufficiently accounts for the equally ancient preference for vegetable diet amongst the followers of Fo. Against the use of pork, on the other hand, an equally strong prejudice exists amongst the Mohammedan section of the people; and the predominance of that faith under the descendants of Kublai Khan and the Mongol dynasty, which strictly prohibits the use of pork, discouraged the feeding of swine as an article for food or sale. It is to their religious prejudices, therefore, that the encouragement of vegetable diet, and the adoption of all those alternations and substitutes for animal food so remarkable in Chinese living, should with propriety be attributed. Mohammedanism, however, under the Tartar dynasty, has gradually declined; toleration has hastened its fall, accompanied, at the same time, by the legislative wisdom of not extending to its followers any especial protection or preference.

Agriculture having obtained a dominion so extensive, and of such very ancient foundation, the terraces that require to “range the valley, rice,” are to be seen in a distinct capable of tillage; and indeed the cultivation of rice has now become a national prejudice too deeply rooted to be ever eradicated from the land. Mr. Gutzlaff, the author of the interesting memoir of the Emperor Kang-he, which accompanies these descriptions, relates an anecdote in one of his voyages, very happily illustrative of this point. “Rice being very cheap in Siam, every Chinese sailor provided a bag or two as a present for his family. In fact, the chief thing they wish and work for is rice; their domestic accounts are entirely regulated by the quantity of rice consumed; their meals, according to the number of bowls of it boiled; and their exertions, according to the quantity wanted. Every substitute for this favourite food is considered meagre, and indicative of the greatest wretchedness. When they cannot obtain a sufficient quantity to satisfy their appetites, they supply the deficiency with an equal weight of water. Inquiring whether the Western barbarians eat rice, and finding me slow to give them an answer, they exclaimed, ‘Oh! the sterile regions of barbarians, which produce not the necessaries of life! Strange that the inhabitants have not long ago died of hunger!’ I endeavoured to show them that we had substitutes for rice which were equal if not superior to it; but all to no purpose; and they still maintain that it is rice only which can properly sustain the life of a human being.”

It was at this busy town that the childish military feat of the lanterns was performed, which Mr. Barrow relates in his account of the return of the embassy from Yuen-min-yuen. “As we approached the city of Tong-chang-foo, we were much amused with a military manœuvre, which was evidently intended to astonish us. Under the walls of the city, about three hundred soldiers were drawn out in a line, which, however, the darkness of the night had rendered invisible. But just as we were coming to anchor, each soldier, at the sound of a gong, produced from under his cloak a splendid lantern, with which he went through a regular manual exercise.” In the suburbs of the town, cultivation is conducted with particular skilfulness; and a species of tobacco is grown here, the leaves of which are small, hairy, and viscous, and the flowers of a greenish yellow passing into a faint rose-colour at the edge of the petals. Hemp is produced here also, in small quantities; but is more generally used to mix with tobacco, than in the manufacture of cloth from its fibres.