modern China are usually bad-tempered and pessimistic, having lost all their sense of
values. Few of them still show any taste and finesse, and this is natural, for taste
comes with tradition. Man is taught to admire beautiful things, not by books but by
social example, and by living in a society of good taste. The spirit of man in the
industrial age is ugly, anyway, and the spirit of man in China, throwing overboard all
that is best and finest in their social tradition in a mad rush for things Western without
the Western tradition, is uglier still to look at. In the whole villadom of Shanghai, with
all its millionaires, there is only one decent Chinese garden and it is owned by a Jew,
All of the Chinese have gone in for the tennis lawn and geometric flower-beds and
trimmed hedges, and tailored trees trained to look a perfect circle or a perfect cone,
and flowers planted to represent letters of the English alphabet. Shanghai is not China,
but Shanghai is an ominous indication of what modern China may come to. It leaves a
bad flavour in our mouths like those Chinese-made Western cream-cakes made with
pigs' lard. And it jars on our senses like those Chinese brass bands playing "Onward,
Christian Soldiers!" in a funeral march. Tradition and taste must take time to grow up.
There was taste in ancient China, and we can see what is left of it in beautiful nlrl
papers, in old porcelain, in great paintings, and in all the old knick-knacks not yet
touched by the modern influence. One cannot fondle the beautiful old books or see the
scholars' letter-papers without seeing that man's spirit in old China had an
understanding of tone and harmony and mellow colours. Only two or three decades
ago there was still a time when men wore gowns of the ducks'-egg green, and women
wore mauve, and when cripe de Chine was really crtpe de Chine, and good red
ink-pad for the seal still had a market. Now the whole silk industry has collapsed
recently because artificial silk is so much cheaper, and it washes so well, and good red
ink-pad, costing thirty-two dollars an ounce, has no market because it has given place
to purple ink for rubber stamps.
This ancient geniality is best reflected in the Chinese familiar essay, hsiaop' inwen,
which is the product of the Chinese spirit at play. The pleasures of a leisurely life are
its eternal themes. Its subject-matter covers the art of drinking tea, the carving of seals
and the appreciation of the cuts and the quality of the stones, the training of
pot-flowers and the caring for orchids, boating on the lake, climbing historically
famous mountains, visiting ancient beauties* tombs, composing poetry under the
moon and looking at a storm on a high mountain 梐 ll written in a style leisurely and
chatty and suave, as disarmingly hospitable as a friend's chat by the fireside and as
poetically disorderly as the recluse's dress, a style trenchant and yet mellow, like good
old wine. And through it all pervades the spirit of man happy with himself and the
universe, poor in possessions but rich in sentiments and discriminating in taste,
experienced and full of worldly wisdom and yet simplehearted, a bottle of emotions
and yet apparently indifferent to all the outside world, cynically contented and wisely
idle, loving simplicity and good material living. This spirit of geniality is best seen in
the Preface to All Men Are Brothers., attributed to the author, but really forged by the great seventeenth-century critic, Ch' in Shengt'an. This Preface, in itself an excellent
example of the Chinese familiar essay regarding both manner and matter, reads like
an essay on Leisure, and the amazing thing is that it was intended by its author as a
preface to a novel .1
1 See translation by Pearl S. Buck in All Men Are Brothers, John Day, 1933,
In China, man knows a great deal about the art of all arts, viz., the art of living. A
younger civilization may be keen on making progress, but an old civilization, having
seen naturally a great deal of life, is keen only on living. In the case of China, with the
spirit of humanism, which makes man the centre of all things and human happiness
the end of all knowledge, this emphasis on the art of living is all the more natural. But
even without humanism, an old civilization must have a different standard of values,
for it alone kno\vs "the durable pleasures of life," which are merely matters of the
senses, food, drink, house, garden, women, and friendship. That is wThat life comes
to in its essence. That is why in old cities like Paris and Vienna we have good chefe,
good wine, beautiful women and beautiful music. After a certain point human
intelligence struck a blind alley, and, tired of asking questions, took again the vine for
its spouse in the Khayyam manner. Any nation, therefore, that does not know how to
eat and enjoy living like the Chinese is uncouth and uncivilized in our eyes.
In the works of Li Liweng (seventeenth century), there is an important section
devoted to the pleasures of life, which is a vade-mecum of the Chinese art of living,
from the house and garden, interior decorations, partitions, to women's toilet,
coiffures, the art of applying powder and rouge, on to the art of cooking and
directions for the gourmet, and finally to the ways of securing pleasure for the rich
man and the poor man, and in all the four seasons, the methods of banning worry,
regulating sex- life, preventing and curing illness, ending in the unique division of
medicine into the very sensible three categories; "medicine that one likes by
temperament," "medicine that is needed by the moment," and "medicine that one
loves and longs for.5* This chapter alone contains more wisdom regarding medical
advice than a whole college course of medicine. This epicure dramatist, for he was a
great comic poet, spoke of what he knew. Some instances of his thorough
understanding of the art of living are given here, as showing the essential Chinese
spirit,
Thus Li Liweng wrote about "Willows" in his intensely human study of different
flowers and trees and the art of enjoying them:
The important thing about willows is that their branches hang down, for if they did
not hang down, they would not be willows. It is important that the branches be long,
for otherwise they cannot sway gracefully in the wind. What then would be the use of
their hanging down? This tree is a place where the cicadas love to rest, as well as the
birds. It is to the credit of this tree that we often hear music in the air and do not feel lonely in summer. Especially is this the case with tall willow trees. In short, the
planting of trees is not only to please the eye, but also to please the ear as well. The
pleasure of the eye is sometimes limited because we are lying down on a bed, On the
other hand, the ear can take its pleasure all the time. The most lovely notes of the
birds are not heard when we are sitting but when we are lying down. Everyone knows
that the birds' songs should be heard at dawn, but does not know why they should be
heard at dawn, as people do not think about it. The birds are continually afraid of the
shooting gun, and after seven o'clock in the morning all the people are up and the
birds no longer feel at ease. Once they are on their gtiard they can never sing
whole-heartedly, and even if they sing their song cannot be beautiful. That is why
daytime is not the proper time for listening to the birds. At dawn the people are not
up yet, with the exception of a few early risers. Since the birds are then free from
worry, naturally they can finish their song at ease. Besides, their tongues have been
lying idle for the whole night, and are now itching to try their skill. Consequently,
when they sing they sing with the full gladness of their hearts. Chuangtse was not a
fish and could understand the happiness of the fish; Liweng is not a bird and can
understand the happiness of the birds. All singing birds should regard me as their
bosom friend. . . . There are many points about the planting of trees, but there is one
point which is an annoyance to the cultivated. When the tree- leaves are too thick
they shut out the moonlight, like shutting off a beauty from our view. The trees
cannot be held guilty of this, because it is the men who are at fault. If we could spend
a thought on this point at the time of planting trees, and allow a corner of the sky to be
shown behind them in order to wait for the rising and setting of the moon, we could
then receive its benefits both at night and day.
Again, we see some very good sense in his advice on women's dress:
The important thing about women's dress is not fineness of material but neatness, not
gorgeous beauty but elegance, not that it agrees with her family standing but that it
agrees with her face. . . . If you take a dress and let several women try it on in
succession, you will see that it agrees with some and not with others, because the
complexion must harmonize with the dress. If a wealthy lady's face does not agree
with rich patterns but agrees with simple colours, and she should insist on having rich
patterns, would not her dress be the enemy of her face? . . . Generally, one whose
complexion is white and soft and whose figure is light and round will be shown to
advantage in any dress. Light colours will show her whiteness but deep colours will
still better show her whiteness. Dresses of fine material will show her delicacy but
dresses of coarse material will still better show her delicacy. . . . But how few women
are of this type? The average woman must choose her dress, and must not take any
kind of material. . . .
When I was young, I remember the young girls used to wear shades of pink, and the
older women used to wear mauve, and later scarlet was changed for pink, and blue
was substituted for mauve, and still later scarlet gave place to purple and blue gave place to green. After the change of the dynasty [beginning of Manchu regime], both
green and purple disappeared, and both young and old women changed into black.
Then Li Liweng went on to discuss the great virtue of black, his favourite colour: how
it fitted all complexions and all ages, and how among the poor it enabled them to wear
a dress longer without showing dirt, and how among the rich they could wear
beautiful colours underneath, so that when the wind blew* the beautiful colours
would be revealed underneath^ leaving a great deal to the imagination.
Again, in the essay on "Sleep/' there is a beautiful section on the art of taking
afternoon naps:
The pleasure of an afternoon nap is double that of sleep at night. This is especially to
be recommended for summer, but not for the other three seasons. This is not
because I am favouring summer, but because a summer day is twice as long as a
winter day, and a summer night is not equal to half a winter night. If a man rests only
at night in summer, that means he is spending one-quarter of his time in recuperating
and three-quarters in working. How can a man's energy last under this arrangement?
Besides, the summer heat is intensive and naturally brings about fatigue. It is as
natural to go to sleep in fatigue as to eat when hungry, or to drink when thirsty. This is
the soundest of all hygiene. After the midday meal, he should wait a while until the
food is digested and then pace near the bed gradually. He should not have the idea
of being determined to sleep, for if one sleeps with that idea the sleep is not sweet. He
should first attend to something, and before the thing is done, a drowsiness comes
over him, and the people of the dreamland come to beckon him, and he arrives at the
fairy place without any effort or consciousness of his own. I like a line from an old
verse: "My hands when weary throw the book away and the afternoon nap is long.5'
When you hold a book in your hand, you have no idea of going to sleep, and when
you throw it away, you have no idea of doing any reading. That is why you do it
without any consciousness and without any effort. This is the alpha and omega of the
art of sleeping. . . .
When mankind knows the art of sleeping as Li Liweng describes it, then mankind
may truly call itself civilized.
II. HOUSE AND GARDEN
Some of the principles of Chinese architecture have already been explained in the
discussion on this subject. The Chinese house and garden, however, present a more
intricate aspect that deserves special attention. The principle of harmony with nature
is carried further, for in the Chinese conception the house and garden are not separate,
but are parts of an organic whole, as evidenced in the phraseyuanchek, or
"garden-home/* A house and a garden can never become an organic whole so long as we have a square building, surrounded by a mown tennis lawn. The word for "garden"
here does not suggest a lawn and geometric flower-beds, but a patch of earth where
one can plant vegetables and fruits and sit undfcr the shade of trees. The Chinese
conception of the home requires that the home, with a well, a poultry yard, and a few
