hand in hand together, father and daughter kissing each other, kissing on the screen,
kissing on the stage, kissing on the railway platform, and kissing everywhere. These
things confirmed him in the belief that the Chinese civilization was really superior.
But there were other things, like the common people being able to read, women being
able to write letters, general cleanliness (which he imagined was a heritage from the Middle Ages instead of a nineteenth-century invention), students* respect for teachers,
and English boys always saying "Yes, sir," to their superiors and the like which were
immeasurably impressive. These, together with good roads, the railway, the steamship,
good leather boots, Parisian perfume, the wonderfully sweet white children, the X-ray
pictures, the camera, the phonograph, the telephone, and many similar things, have
completely shattered the native pride.
Helped by the extraterritorial rights and the generous use of European boots against
Chinese coolies, for which there is no legal redress, the loss of pride became an
instinctive fear of the foreigner. The old celestial pride is now no more. The
hullabaloo raised by foreign merchants against possible Chinese attacks on the
settlements is only a negative testimony of their courage and of their knowledge of
modern China. Some inward indignation against those European boots and their
liberal use against Chinese coolies there must always be, but if the foreigner thinks
that the Chinese will ever show their indignation by reprisal with inferior leather
boots, he is grossly mistaken. If they did, they would not be Chinese, but Christians.
Practically speaking, admiration for the Europeans and fear of their aggressiveness are
now universal.
Some such bad shock must have been responsible for the ultra-radicalism that brought
about the Republic of China. No one could think China would become a republic. It
was a change so vast and gigantic that it could appeal to none except the idiotic or the
inspired. It was like building a bridge of rainbow across to heaven and then walking
on it. But the Chinese revolutionists of 1911 were inspired. Following upon the
Chinese defeat in the Sino-Japanese War of 1895, there was an active propaganda for
modernization of China. There were two schools, the constitutionalists who stood for
a modernized limited monarchy, and the revolutionists who were for a republic. The
left wing was led by Sun Yatsen, while the right wing was led by K'ang Yuwei, and
his disciple Liang Ch' ich'ao, who later forsook his master and turned left. For a long
time, the adherents of these parties were fighting literary battles in Japan, but the
question was finally settled, not by any argument but by the apparent hopelessness
of the Manchu regime and by the intrinsic appeal to facial pride. The political
radicalism of 1911 was followed by the literary radicalism of 19163 when the Chinese
Renaissance movement was started by Hu Shih, and succeeded by the ideological
radicalism of 1926, with the result that Communism is to-day colouring the thought of
practically all primary schoolteachers of the country.
The consequence is that, to-day, China is divided into two armed camps of
Communism and reaction. There is a deep chasm separating the younger generation
from the older generation, which is an extremely regrettable state of affairs. While the
thinking younger generation are decidedly for a cataclysmic upheaval of the whole
ideological and political system, a movement of conservative reaction has set in
among the ruling authorities. The conservative reaction is unfortunately unconvincing,
owing to the fact that its champions are mostly war- lords and politicians whose personal lives are far from being models of Confucian conduct. Actually, such
conservatism is only a cloak of hypocrisy and a sadistic reprisal giving outlet to their
hatred of the young. For Confucianism teaches respect for old age and authority. The
shining political light who utters large mouthfuls of Confucianism happens also to
initiate Thibetan- lama-Buddhist prayers for-divine succour against Japanese
aggression. The jumble of Confucian platitudes mixed with Sanscrit om mani padme
hum and Thibetan prayer-wheels creates an extremely weird effect unlikely to arouse
the interest of the young Chinese.
This is the surface struggle between conservatism and radicalism in China. Its
outcome will depend largely upon Japanese and European politics, for no mere
argument will settle the question. China may yet be driven to Communism, if the
champions of conservatism cannot prove themselves worthy to find a way out for
China. As regards the true temperament of the Chinese race and the large mass of
people who either read Chinese only or read nothing at all, conservatism will always
remain.
Most important, however, is the fact that Chinese do not want to change. Behind all
the outward changes of custom and women's dress and habits of locomotion, the
Chinese retains a sneering smile for the hot-headed young man who wears a foreign
coat or who speaks English too well. That young man always looks immature and is
often shamed out of his progressiveness. Th$ strange thing is that the man who no
longer looks immature veers towards conservatism in China. The returned student
arrives at maturity by putting on a Chinese gown and accepting the Chinese way of
life. He loves its mellowness, its leisure, its comforts, and its commonplace
contentment. In his Chinese gown, his soul has come to rest. The strange fascination
of Chinese surroundings which keeps many "queer55 Europeans in China for life
comes over him toward middle age.
Chapter Three
THE CHINESE MIND
I. INTELLIGENCE
IF the preceding chapter on the Chinese character has any general conclusion, it is
that of the supremacy of the human mind over material surroundings. Supremacy of
the mind has more than one meaning. It means not only the application of human cunning to convert a world known to be full of pain and misery into a habitable place
for human beings, but it implies also a certain contempt for mere physical courage
and strength as such. Confucius long ago condemned the Jack Dempsey type of
physical courage in his disciple Tziilu, and I am sure he would have preferred a Gene
Tunney who could be at home in circles of educated friends as well. Mencius, too,
distinguished between mental labour and manual labour, and did not hesitate to put
the former above the latter. For the Chinese had no nonsense about equality, and
respect for the mental labourers or the educated class has been an outstanding
characteristic of the Chinese civilization.
This respect for learning must be taken in a different sense from that usually
understood in the West, for, devoted as some Chinese scholars are to their learning,
the devotion of some Western professors to their special subjects, sometimes
amounting to a morbid pride and professional jealousy, seems to me much more
impressive. The Chinese respect for the scholar is based on a different conception, for
they respect that type of education which increases his practical wisdom, his
knowledge of world affairs, and his judgment in times of crisis. It is a respect which,
in theory at least, must be earned by actual worth. In local as in national troubles, the
people look to him for cool judgment, for far-sightedness, for a better eixvisagement
of the manifold consequences of an act or decision, and therefore for natural guidance
and leadership, and real leadership is conceived as a leadership of the mind. With the
majority of people illiterate, it is easy to maintain that leadership, sometimes by a
mere jumble of unusual phrases that the illiterate only half understand, or by a
reference to history, of which the common people have only such knowledge as they
can pick up from the theatre. The reference to history generally settles the question,
and it is characteristic, because the Chinese mind thinks in terms of concrete analogy,
which somehow puts the situation in a form that the common people can grasp in its
entirety.
I have already suggested that the Chinese suffer from an overdose of intelligence, as
shown in their old roguery, their indifference, and in their pacifism, which so often
borders on cowardice. But all intelligent men are cowards, because intelligent men
want to save their skins. There can be nothing more silly, if we keep our minds clear
enough to see it, than a man popping his head "over the top," with gin-manufactured
courage, in order to meet a lead bullet and die for a newspapermanufactured "cause/'
If he can use his head in reading newspapers, he will not be at the front, and if he can
abstain from gin and keep a cool head, he will logically and humanly be in a blue funk.
The last war has taught us that many gentle souls who shine at school or college
undergo a mental torture of which the more robust and less intelligent have no inkling
of _ an idea. And it is not the novice but the man in service for four years who begins
to realize that desertion is often a virtue one owes to oneself and the only sane course
open to a sensible and honest man.
But the general mental intelligence of the Chinese race can be proved from other sources than cowardice. Chinese students in America and European colleges often
distinguish themselves academically, and I think this is hardly due to a process of
selection. The Chinese mind is long used to academic discussions at home. The
Japanese have sarcastically dubbed the Chinese "a literary nation," and justifiably so.
An example of this is.the enormous output of current Chinese magazines which seems
to crop up wherever a group of four or five friends get together in a city, and the
tremendous number of writers who keep the magazine editors overwhelmed with their
articles. The old imperial examinations which, as I have pointed out, were a kind of
intelligence test, long ago sharpened the Chinese scholar's mind in the fine use of
words and in subtle literary distinctions, and the cultivation of poetry has trained them
in the higher spheres of literary expression, and in taste and finesse. The Chinese art
of painting has reached a height yet unreached by the West, and in calligraphy they
have forged a way alone and reached what I believe to be the maximun variety and
refinement in the conception of rhythmic beauty.
The Chinese mind therefore cannot be accused of lacking originality or creativeness.
Its inventiveness has been equal to the handicraft stage in which Chinese industries
have always remained. Because of the failure to develop a scientific method and
because of the peculiar qualities of Chinese thinking, China has been backward in
natural science. I have confidence, however, that with the importation of the scientific
method, and with adequate research facilities, China will be able to produce great
scientists and make important contributions to the scientific world in the next century.
Nor is such native intelligence confined to the educated class. Chinese servants are
greatly welcomed on account of their general intelligence and human understanding,
and must be put at least on a par with European servants. Chinese merchants have
prospered in the Malay States, in the East Indies and in the Philippines chiefly
because their intelligence has been greater than that of the natives and because of
those virtues that come from intelligence, such as thrift, steady industry and
far-sightedness. The respect for scholarship has brought about a general desire for
refinement even among the lower middle class, of which the foreigner is seldom
aware. Foreign residents in Shanghai sometimes offend the department-store salesmen
by talking down to them in "pidgin/* not knowing that many of them are particular
about a split infinitive. Chinese labourers are easily trained to be skilled mechanics
where precision is required. One rarely sees in the slums and factory districts that type
of big, husky animal of a similar class in the West, distinguished only by his big jaw.
low forehead and brute strength. One meets a different type, with intelligent eyes and
cheerful appearance and an eminently reasonable temperament. Perhaps the
variability of intelligence is decidedly lower among the Chinese than among many
Western races, the same lower variability that we see in the mental powers of women
as compared with variability in men.
II. FEMININITY
Indeed, the Chinese mind is akin to the feminine mind in many respects. Femininity, in fact, is the only word that can summarize its various aspects. The qualities of the
feminine intelligence and feminine logic are exactly the qualities of the Chinese mind.
The Chinese head, like the feminine head, is full of common sense. It is shy of
abstract terms, like women's speech. The Chinese way of thinking is synthetic,
concrete and revels in proverbs, like women's conversation. They never have had
higher mathematics of their own, and seldom have gone beyond the level of
arithmetic, like many women, with the exception of those masculine women
