MUSIC, GAMBLING, EATING, THEATRE-GOING

In Chinatown—­A Musician’s Shop—­A Secret Society—­Gambling Houses—­“The Heathen Chinee”—­Fortune-telling—­The Knife in the Fan-Case—­A Boarding House—­A Lesson for Landlords—­A Kitchen—­A Goldsmith’s Shop—­The Restaurant—­Origin of the Tea-Plant—­What a Chinaman Eats—­The Tobacco or Opium Pipe—­A Safe with Eight Locks—­The Theatre—­Women by Themselves—­The Play—­The Stage—­The Actors—­The Orchestra and the Music—­The Audience—­A Death on the Stage—­The Theatre a Gathering Place—­No Women Actors—­A Wise Provision—­Temptations—­Real Acting—­Men the Same Everywhere.

The reader will now accompany us to a musician’s shop in our wanderings through Chinatown.  This is located in a basement and is a room about fifteen feet wide and some twenty feet deep.  This son of Jubal from the Flowery Kingdom was about fifty-five years old and a very good-natured man.  He received us with a smile, and when he was requested by the guide to play for us he sat down before an instrument somewhat like the American piano, called Yong Chum.  The music was of a plaintive character, and was lacking in the melody of a Broadwood or a Steinway.  Then he played on another instrument which resembled a bandore or banjo and was named Sem Yim.  Afterwards he took up a Chinese flute and played a tune, which was out of the ordinary and was withal of a cheerful nature.  He then showed us something that was striking and peculiar—­a Chinese fiddle with two strings.  The bow strings were moved beneath the fiddle strings.  The music was by no means such as to charm one, and you could not for a moment imagine that you were listening to a maestro playing on a Cremona.  The Chinese, while they have a reputation for philosophy after the example of their great men, like Confucius and Mencius, and while there are poets of merit among them like Su and Lin, yet can not be said to excel in musical composition and rendering.  The tune with which our Chinese friend sought to entertain us on his fiddle was, “A Hot Time in the Old Town To-night.”  He thought this would be agreeable to our American ears.  Meanwhile I glanced around this music-room and among other things I saw, and which interested me, were several effigies of men, characters in Chinese history.  Some were no doubt true to life while others were caricatures of the persons whom they represented.  It might be styled an Eden Musee.

Leaving the musician’s, after giving him a suitable fee for entertaining us, we turned our footsteps towards the Chee Kung Tong.  This is a Chinese secret society.  The Chinese are wont to associate themselves together, even if they do not mingle much with men of other nations.  They have their gatherings for social purposes and for improvement and pastime, and, like the Anglo-Saxon and the Latin races, they have their mystic signs and passwords.  Of course we were not permitted to enter the Chee Kung Tong