SERVANTS

The general experience of Englishmen in China with regard to the servants is, taking it all in all, a pleasant one. The average intelligence of the class of men and women that are employed is a fairly good one. They consequently learn their work easily, and as they are industrious and moved by a sense of fidelity they render such very pleasant services that when families have to return to England, they think with regret of the home life they have left behind them in that far-off land, which owed a good deal of its charm to the cheerful and willing service rendered by the servants in it.

It must not be inferred that there never is any friction. That would be to assume a state of things that could be found nowhere in the wide world. Disagreements do happen and collisions do take place, but these are but as it were the occasional clouds in a sky that is usually sunny, and besides there is so much of the grotesque mingled with the unpleasant, that after the affair is over and the irritation has subsided one is more inclined to laugh at the whole affair than to be angry.

If there is a family, the servants usually required are a cook, a table boy, a water coolie to carry water, and an amah or nurse, who will help with the children, if there are any, look after the bedrooms, and do any mending that may be needed. The most important amongst them all is the cook, for the comfort of a home depends in a very large measure upon him, so the great aim of every housewife is to secure a man who knows his work well, is clean, and is fairly honest. If such a one as this can be secured, there will never be any disposition to get rid of him, even though he may have serious faults that it requires considerable patience to endure.

As soon as it is known that you wish to engage a cook, you have almost an immediate application for the situation. You gaze upon the applicant with a good deal of anxiety, and if it were possible you would like to read into his very heart to know what kind of a character he is. Is he good-tempered, or is he touchy and masterful, and, like most Chinese, does he want his own way? You scan his face to see if you can catch a glimpse of the soul within, but it is as expressionless as a statue. The control that a Chinaman has over his features is one of the mysteries of this wonderful people. He has so schooled them, that when he likes they will show no trace of what is going on in his mind.

You inquire of him if he knows how to cook. If he is a really clever artist, he will reply, “A little.” There is a double motive in saying this. It is a sign of pride, and it also secures him in the future from any very serious criticism of the mistress, for if he should fail to please her in any particular dish, he will remind her that he warned her when she was engaging him that he did not profess to be an adept in cooking.

All the time you have been questioning him he has been looking at you with those black, piercing eyes of his and trying to read you. Are you shrewd and wideawake, or are you so green that you can be cheated with your eyes open? Are you acquainted with the wiles of the Chinese mind, or will you accept everything you are told as though it were gospel truth? Will you watch everything that is going on in your kitchen, or will you leave the full control in his hands? These are some of the questions that flash through the Yellow brain, and before he quits you he will have formed a very accurate idea of the kind of mistress you are to whom he has engaged himself.

There is one thing that is quite settled, and that is from the moment of his engagement the one great aim of his life is to make as much money as he can out of the situation he has just gained. His facilities for doing so are very great, for the custom in the East is for the cook to purchase all the daily food that is used in the family. The mistress never does this. It would be impossible for her to rise every morning by daylight and go into the narrow ill-smelling streets and buy from the farmers as they bring in their produce from the country in the early dawn. There are months in the year, besides, when the heat is so intense and the rays of the sun are so scorching that she would not dare to venture out to make her purchases. The result is, the duty of buying is left to the cook, and as his conscience is an exceedingly elastic one, it may easily be conceived what an opportunity this gives him of making money.

In the art of doing this every Chinaman is an adept. He begins to learn it when he is a boy. His mother sends him out when he is a small lad to buy some simple thing for the home. He returns with the article minus ten per cent., which he considers his lawful commission, though he is careful not to let his mother know, and with this he plays pitch-and-toss with other youthful gamblers in the street. As he grows in years, he becomes more expert in the art of extracting commissions from every sum entrusted to his care, and now that he has become a cook a golden field is opened up before him, where his gains are only bounded by the ignorance or carelessness of his employer.

As it is impossible for his mistress to follow him down the narrow, crowded streets where the provisions for the day are to be bought, he has a wide field for the exercise of his ingenuity as to how much extra he is to charge for everything he buys. She does not know the market rates, and therefore within certain very undefined limits she is at his mercy.

It is as good as a play to watch the progress of the taking an account of the purchases for any particular day, and to see how the wily Chinaman, with his childlike, innocent-looking face, and the Englishwoman with her open-hearted, guileless disposition, settle such a difficult financial problem.

The latter seats herself at the table with her account-book open and with pen in hand. She is restless and uneasy, for she is conscious that she is going to be cheated, and that she herself will have to register the figures that will ensure her own defeat. The Oriental stands some way off, with head slightly drooping and with a face that might have been that of a saint. With a calmness and simplicity of manner, as though he were stating one of Heaven’s eternal principles, he mentions the first item of his account. There is no faltering or hesitation in his accent, or any sign of guile, though it is precisely fifty per cent. more than he actually paid for the article he has mentioned.

The lady moves restlessly in her seat. Her heart is beginning to swell with indignation, for she is positive that she is being overcharged. She has no proof, however, and with her Occidental training that it is not right to bring an accusation unless supported by some evidence, she puts down the lying figures. The Oriental looks on without the shadow of a smile, though with his sense of humour bubbling up within him, he is conscious of the huge comedy that is being played. He has scored his first success, but to let his face show that would be to throw victory from him when it was just within his grasp.Another and another item is given, as though they were quotations from his own sacred classics, each one as mendacious as the first, and the scribe, conscious that with every additional figure sums are being stolen from her own pocket and transferred to the cook’s, nervously writes them down, though her heart is vigorously protesting all the time. The only protest she can make is an indignant “Too dear, too dear by far,” which the Oriental listens to unmoved, and as though they were eulogies upon his honesty.

At length one sum, that she has certain information about, that is a hundred per cent. over the market price is given her, without a quaver in his voice. She at once asks him, with a ring of passion that up to this time she has managed to suppress, how it is that he dares to charge her just double of what he gave. The Chinaman is equal to the occasion. No man, indeed, in this great Empire is ever at a loss for an answer on the spot to the most awkward question that may be put to him. An Occidental will stammer and hesitate when a difficulty of this kind occurs, and the scarlet flush that will flash over his face will announce his confusion. An Oriental will instantly become more calm. His eyes will melt into gentleness, and his face assume the appearance of one that is absorbed in some great moral problem that he is endeavouring to solve.

The cook looks at the lady in gentle wonder. The charge has steadied him, and made him more tranquil and composed. “What does the mistress mean?” he asks. His face is childlike in its assumption of innocence. “Do you really think I would cheat you? I may be poor,” he continues, “but I am honest, and if you only go to the market and inquire the price of goods, you will find that I am charging exactly what I paid.” “Well,” she triumphantly replies, “I have been there already, and I find you have charged me just double the market rate.”

This seems to be a crushing answer, but it only serves to bring out the true resources of the Chinese mind. Instead of being flustered with this decided evidence of his guilt, he becomes more self-possessed. “It is quite true,” he says, “that such goods can be bought at the price you name, but they are inferior articles, and such as would not be accepted by you, were I to buy them for you. You always want the best, and I would never dream of purchasing such things. I can get them for you at the price you mention, but you must not complain if they are not as good as you are used to.”

The lady is determined not to be beaten, so she puts down the price at half that he has named, the cook meanwhile protesting that he is a loser, and that himself and family will have to suffer.

But it is not simply in the matter of overcharges that the cook finds a large field open to him for successful financial operations. Overweights are also a fruitful source of revenue to him. When he goes to market he always carries with him his steelyard, and every purchase that is made is weighed with it.

Chinese law has never legislated with regard to weights and measures, and no inspector ever goes round to see that the public is not cheated when they make their purchases. The consequence is that every man that can possibly afford it carries his own steelyard, in order to check the tradesmen who might be inclined to give them short measure. The cook would no more dream of going out to market without his steelyard than he would think of going without his fan in the dog days. It is his vade mecum by which he can measure his gains, for when he returns home he reports to the mistress that he has bought so many ounces more than he really has, and the money she pays him for these mythical weights is so much pure gain that he pockets.

If the lady, however, takes a pride in the management of her household and is anxious to keep down expenses, she will insist that every article that the cook buys shall be brought and weighed in her presence before she pays for it. This home is not an ideal one for a cook. He has, however, to submit to the inevitable, but he at once sets his wits to work to circumvent her by ingenious ways and dogged perseverance in his plans, such as no watchfulness on her part will ever enable her entirely to frustrate. There is no profession in China like a cook’s for developing the inventive faculties or for stimulating the imagination.

The mistress in self-defence gets a steelyard. Without that she would be at the mercy of the man whose whole aim in life is now to circumvent her, and circumvent her he will, or the Yellow brain will have lost its cunning. Some of his schemes are most ingenious. For example, he is told one day to go out and buy a fowl. He goes to the market, and secures one after an immense amount of haggling and carries it home.

After he has got there he proceeds to cram down its throat some very common stuff, till its crop is as full as it can contain. This is to increase its weight and consequently his gains, for the animal is sold at so much an ounce.

The cook brings the fowl to be weighed, with a look of the sweetest simplicity on his face. Such a thing as guile could never exist behind such a bland and childlike countenance as his. The mistress, who is up to all his dodges, is unmoved by the seraphic air his face wears. She feels the fowl that is hanging by its legs from the hook on the steelyard, and she remarks how thin it is, and then points to the distended crop, and asks him what he means by such cruelty, and how he dares to try and cheat her by such a transparent device. The cook at once assumes an air of surprise, and looks at the swollen crop with the utmost indignation. “Oh!” he exclaims in a truly theatrical tone, “I have been cheated. This was done in the shop, and, as it was dimly lighted, I did not perceive how I was being taken in. I shall give that man that sold me the fowl a piece of my mind when I next see him.”

The lady is accustomed to such tricks as this, and she says, “I shall deduct two ounces from the weight you have given me.” The man puts on an injured air and in a plaintive voice says, “You surely do not wish me to be a loser by my purchase, I am a poor man and I cannot afford that.” The lady, however, is firm, and by and by his usually placid look once more overspreads his sphinx-like countenance, whilst his admiration for his mistress’ ability is vastly increased.

One day a cook brought in a round of beef to his mistress to be weighed. There was an ingenuous look about him that disarmed suspicion. There was evidently no deception there, and she was just about to accept it, when the instinct of suspicion that lingers in the mind whenever you have to do with the Chinese about money prompted her to say, “Undo the string that ties this beef and let me see inside.” A sudden flush ran through the man’s face, and he hesitated for a moment to carry out her orders, but knowing that any delay would only excite her anger, he cut the string, when out rolled a stone of fully half-a-pound in weight. A look of surprise and indignation swept across the face of his mistress, for even she, with all her knowledge of the fertility of the Chinese brain, had never dreamed of such a cunning device to cheat her.

She looked at the cook with flashing eyes, but he was apparently unmoved. No flush of shame mantled his cheeks. Instead of that an innocent air crept over his countenance, and a look of wonder stole into his eyes, as he exclaimed, “Dear me, however did that stone get there? The people of the shop must have put it in whilst my head was turned. How dishonest of them! I really must give up dealing with them. The principles of Heaven are evidently unknown to them.” The withering tones of indignation uttered by his mistress seemed to make no impression upon him, and he left her presence, muttering to himself, “How wrong of that butcher to cheat me as he has done to-day, and to cause me to lose face, and to make me a laughing-stock to every one that may hear this story.”

The steelyard is an invention that is intended to promote honest dealing. It is sometimes, however, the unconscious instrument of a systematic deceit, which is all the more effective because it is so entirely unsuspected. On one occasion a young fellow had been engaged as cook. He was a man of engaging manners, with a pleasant open face, and a winning disposition that made one unconsciously have great faith in him. He was consequently greatly trusted by his employers, though they never forgot the terrible temptations to which as a cook he was exposed.

It seemed that after a while the spell of money spun its subtle web over him, and he succumbed to its fatal fascination. With the implicit faith that his mistress had in him, the opportunity for making money on all his purchases became enlarged. This led him into gambling, and as the gambler nearly always loses, he had to look around for some method that would give him a larger revenue than could be secured by his squeezes on the articles he bought every day for the use of the home.

In this dilemma, a bright idea occurred to him; he would so manipulate the steelyard that it should serve his purpose, and enable him to pay his gambling debts, and still give him funds to pursue his favourite vice. He accordingly filed off two ounces from the iron weight attached to it, and which acted as a counterpoise to the goods that were being weighed at the other end of the yard, and by a single stroke he secured to himself twelve and a half per cent. on every purchase that he made.The mistress had no suspicion of this deep-laid scheme, for she never dreamed of testing the iron weight, and the cook with guileless looks and childlike smiles gathered in his gains, feeling confident that he had now struck a mine that would never be exhausted. But a Nemesis was at hand, and one day his treachery was revealed by a person with whom he had quarrelled, when he was instantly dismissed as a man with a mind too original and too dangerous to be allowed to hold any position in the household for the future.

From the above it will have been inferred that the difficulty of controlling a cook in China is one that no foreigner ever hopes to cope with successfully, and the same thing only in a milder form exists with regard to all the other servants that are employed in the running of a home in this land. If the Chinaman was less expert in disguising his thoughts, the matter would be simpler. Ages of practice, however, have taught them to conceal their feelings from the keenest scrutiny to which they may be subjected. Looks and language, which in other peoples are usually an index to the condition of the mind, are in their case no guide whatsoever.

The boy, for example, who really is a full-grown man, comes to you one morning, and in a low, melodious voice informs you that he wishes you to engage another servant, as he is compelled to leave you. You are surprised, for no intimation of anything of the kind has come to you till the present moment. You ask him why this sudden decision, and if there is anything in the home with which he is dissatisfied. He says, “No, you have been very kind to me, and I am exceedingly unwilling to leave you, but I have had a letter from my father, and he is very urgent that I should go home as quickly as I can. The fact is,” he continues, “he is getting old, and he needs my help on the farm, and I must ask you to let me go.”He tells his story in such an easy, natural manner, that you are inclined to believe him, though lingering doubts will run through your mind. You remember that his family is desperately poor, and depend very largely upon this son for the wages he earns to keep them from starvation. You are perplexed to know what to do, but finally you pay him the wages due to him, and with many bows and a genial smile lighting up his yellow features, he bids you good-bye.

Not long after he has gone, the true secret of his desire to leave his employ comes out. The letter from his father, and the need of his help on the farm, are myths that his fertile imagination conjured up, and never had any existence in fact. The real truth is he had a row with the water coolie, who comes from a village in the country contiguous to his own, and who belongs to a more powerful clan than his. He dreads any further collision with this man, who might send word to his relatives there, who would speedily take measures to avenge their wrongs on their weaker neighbours, and so, to save himself and the family, he resigns.

Chinese servants, taking them all in all, may be considered to be honest. It is true that from a ten commandments point of view, and the higher morality we have been accustomed to in England, they cannot in a strict sense be said to be so. Of course they have never heard of the Decalogue, and therefore they cannot be blamed for not knowing what it demands. The training they have been subjected to during the past two thousand years has taught them to look with very different eyes upon certain subjects from what ours do.

Overcharges, for example, and skilful manipulations of the steelyard to make it lie, are not considered so much moral defects as tokens of an unusually active brain. A man who does not know how to do such things is not looked upon as one who has a higher standard of life, but one who is, in the expressive language of the vernacular, “idiotically honest.” It is not a question of conscience with such a man, but rather a lack of brain power, which has made him less mentally fit for those keen and rapid movements of thought that are essential in the conflict of mind with mind.

It is not simply, however, in the question of overcharges and the manipulating the steelyard that the servants’ ideas of morality differ materially from our own. There are a good many other points where they certainly look with leniency upon certain questionable actions that we should never dream of doing. Small things, for example, of comparatively little value, will mysteriously disappear. The Chinese would repudiate the idea that they were stolen. They simply vanished, and no trace is left of them. A kerosine tin, for example, has been emptied and placed in the yard for a short time. The mistress is aware of the peculiar idiosyncrasies of the Chinese with regard to articles of the kind, and she keeps a sharp look out upon it. She happens to have to go to another part of the house for a few minutes, and when she returns it is gone. She calls each of the servants, and asks them all where is it. They all feign surprise, and remark to each other about the daring of the man that had carried it off. “Very remarkable,” says one. “Why, I saw it myself only a moment ago! Where can it have got to?” “The men of the present day are not to be compared with those of ancient times,” remarks another sententiously, as though he were one of the sages of China. They gather round the spot where the tin stood and peer into the ground, as though some sprite had bewitched it into the earth.

The acting of the servants on this occasion is inimitable. Not only is the one that absorbed it present, but each of the others knows that he is the culprit; yet not a twinkle of the eye, nor a movement in the muscles of the face of any one of them can be discerned to show that they are either moved by the absurdity of the matter, or indignant that the honesty of the whole should be called in question by the act of one of them.

Again, a half-dozen empty bottles are left on a table. One by one they slowly disappear, and nobody knows where they have gone, though the itinerant rag merchant who makes his daily rounds could tell you exactly how much he gave for them, and from whom he bought them. If there is one thing, however, more than another that has a fascination for the Chinese, it is a pocket-handkerchief.

The nation as a whole knows nothing of this useful article. The ancient worthies that founded the Empire never dreamt of such luxuries. Their descendants, however, have taken to it with an avidity that is perfectly amazing, and whenever they can get a chance they quietly absorb them. You buy a dozen and have them marked with the blackest of indelible ink. The identity of those handkerchiefs can never be disputed, so you feel satisfied that you will have a fair service out of them.

A week passes by, and you suddenly find two of them have vanished. You are staggered, for you remember that handkerchiefs have a fatal facility for disappearing. You put off the decision of the question by assuming they have gone to the wash, or they are hidden away in some of your pockets, and they will turn up by and by. Another week goes by, and others vanish, till in the course of no very long period only one is left. You question the servants, but blank and child-looking faces meet you at every inquiry that you make.

It is never suggested that the cat has walked off with them, as might be in England, where all kinds of unspeakable immoralities are put down to that animal. Chinese civilization has never yet produced a cat that has got the reputation of the same species in the West. Everybody simply denies that he ever saw the handkerchiefs, or knew indeed that they existed; and yet it is quite probable that if you were to visit their homes, you would find the lady members of their families sporting them on all public occasions, and making their female members green with envy because they could not have the same.

Now, it must not be inferred that the Chinese servants are systematic thieves, because they are not. With regard to the more valuable things in a house, they may be said to be strictly honest. Articles of considerable value, such as clocks, opera-glasses, and ornaments for the mantelpiece, one need never have any anxiety about. They would fetch much more than some of the other things that are bound, by a law as unvarying as that of the Medes and Persians, to disappear, but they are as safe in the rooms as though a policeman’s eye was constantly upon them. What are the mental processes a Chinaman goes through to enable him with a good conscience to appropriate something worth a dozen cents or so, whilst he would scorn the idea of walking off with any of the more valuable property of his master, is a mystery to the foreigner. Perhaps he could hardly analyze his own feelings on the subject. His love for the indirect and curvilinear method of approaching a subject may have had some influence in making him unable to decide the question even for himself.

There is one subject that must not be omitted in this discussion of the servants, and that is the percentages they claim upon everything that the dealers from outside bring into the house. These are quite distinct from those that the cook makes in his purchases, and he never lays claim for any share in them. Although they are perquisites that are supposed never to come to the ears of their superiors, and are strictly private transactions, they do in a certain sense seriously affect the pockets of their masters.

The baker and the milkman, for instance, have to pay the boy ten per cent. at the end of the month when they receive payment for the goods they have supplied, whilst the washerman is more severely taxed, for, in addition to the above tax, he has to wash all his clothes for nothing. No tradesman attempts to evade these impositions, for he well knows that were he to do so, the boy would so manipulate matters that he would lose the custom of the house, which would at once be transferred to a rival that could offer more.

On one occasion a milkman was being coerced into increasing the percentage that he had been accustomed to pay. He declared that he could not possibly afford to do so, as his profits were so scanty. The boy became silent, but there was a gleam in his eyes that boded no good to the milkman. Next morning the latter as usual brought round the daily bottle of milk for the house. The boy placed it beside the hot kitchen range and, when the family assembled for breakfast, he brought the milk to his mistress and showed her that it had gone bad. When he was asked the reason for this, he assured her it was the milkman’s fault, whose milk was of a decidedly inferior character; and as for his cows, they were well known to give only adulterated milk at the best. The lady is naturally indignant, and at once asks him if he cannot get another man to supply the home with milk. “Oh! yes, I have number one man, milk number one good, can do.” He is directed to see if he could not get sufficient immediately to do for breakfast, which he declares can be easily done. This he can well guarantee, as he has already a man outside just waiting to be called. He produces a bottle of milk, which it would appear he came by accidentally, though the whole thing is planned and engineered by the boy. The milk turns out to be so excellent that the whole family is charmed with it. It has a rich creamy look about it, such as they have not seen since they left England, and which they will not probably see the like of for many a day to come. It has the look and taste of milk, and has no suspicion of the pump about it, and so the tea this morning has not tasted so nice since they know not when.

Imperative orders are issued that the old milkman who had dared to bring such inferior milk should be at once dismissed and the new one taken on, and so the deep-laid scheme of the boy has succeeded, and his increased percentage secured. From this moment the services of the pump will come into requisition, and the old sky-blue hue will colour every bottle of milk that comes into the house.

Chinese servants as a rule never accept a situation under a foreigner simply for the wages that are offered them. These usually are higher than could be got in a purely Chinese home. It is the fat percentages that are the main attraction, for by these the salary will often be increased as much as fifty per cent. A Chinaman is ever on the look-out for these, and like the eagle in the sky can scent his prey from afar.

You have had occasion, for example, to dismiss your boy. The news spreads in the most rapid and unexplained manner. There are no registry offices that are interested in supplying servants. Not an hour has passed by, however, before you are told that two men want to see you. “Ah! the new boy,” you mutter, as you walk out to see them. One of the two is your cook, and a glance shows you that the other is the expectant boy.

The cook does all the talking, whilst the other looks nervous and uncomfortable. He moves uneasily from one foot to the other, gives now and then a short, dry cough, all signs of that species of nervousness that a man feels when some important question is going to be decided. He hangs his head, and his black, piercing eyes seem absorbed in his contemplation of the ground, but in the meanwhile he is reading your character and figuring up in his own mind how much he is going to make and whether he is likely to get on with you.

The cook seems to be in the happiest of moods. His face is wreathed in smiles, and his speech is adorned with Oriental similes that excite poetic thoughts in your mind, if it is capable of such. He knows that you are in want of a boy, he says. Boys are difficult to be got: they are at a premium just now. Good capable ones are not to be obtained at any price, but as good luck would have it, here is one that has just turned up, a very paragon in his way, and one that would suit the master down to the ground.

You look at the man with a critical eye, but you get but very little out of that sphinx-looking face of his. Does he understand his work? you weakly ask the cook, more for something to say than for any hope of obtaining any exact knowledge about the man before you. “Certainly he does,” he replies, with a toss of his head in the air and a wave of his right hand as though he had just demonstrated a problem in Euclid, and was ending with the triumphant formula, Q.E.D.

After some further questioning, you ask the cook if he is prepared to stand security for the man and be responsible for his honesty. He is evidently ready to do so, for he at once strikes an attitude, slaps his breast with his open palm, and with gleaming eyes and impassioned look he says, “This is my affair; I will guarantee the man that he is a good and a safe one, and you may accept him as a servant without any fear.”

You are satisfied, and you at once take him on. The cook is also pleased, for the man will have to pay him the heavy percentage of one-half of his month’s salary for the service he has just rendered him.

The servant question is a most interesting one for watching the play of thought and the subtle and unexpected ways in which the Yellow brain works. It is at times a very irritating one, and is apt to give one distorted views of the whole Chinese race, and to cause one to make sweeping statements about the general incapacity of the whole nation. In one’s saner moments one will freely confess that the home servants are on the whole less obliging and more exacting than the same class out here. There is besides the ludicrous element in the Chinese, that always takes off the edge of almost any unpleasantness. Even when one is most annoyed there is something so funny about the way in which a Chinaman acts, that one’s anger is most likely to explode in laughter. There is one thing highly in their favour, and that is their great love and tenderness for children. Taking them all in all, any one who has had large experience of the servants in China can honestly declare that on the whole they are a faithful and satisfactory class of people.