More Men In Red,
And Then The Crowd Closes Up Again, To Be Again Divided By A Plebeian
Chair Like
Mine, or by pariahs running with a coffin fifteen feet long,
shaped like the trunk of a tree, or by
Coolies carrying burdens slung
on bamboo poles, uttering deafening cries, or by a marriage procession
with songs and music, or by a funeral procession with weeping and
wailing, succeeding each other incessantly. All the people in the
streets are shouting at the top of their voices, the chair and baggage
coolies are yelling, and to complete the bewildering din the beggars at
every corner are demanding charity by striking two gongs together.
Color riots in these narrow streets, with their high houses with
projecting upper stories, much carved and gilded, their deeply
projecting roofs or eaves tiled with shells cut into panes, which let
the light softly through, while a sky of deep bright blue fills up the
narrow slit between. Then in the shadow below, which is fitfully
lighted by the sunbeams, hanging from all the second stories at every
possible interval of height, each house having at least two, are the
richly painted boards of which I wrote before, from six to ten feet
long, some black, some heavily gilded, a few orange, but the majority
red and perfectly plain, except for the characters several inches long
down the middle of each, gold on the red and black, and black on the
gold and orange - these, with banners, festoons, and the bright blue
draperies which for a hundred days indicate mourning in a house, form
together a spectacle of street picturesqueness such as my eyes have
never before beheld. Then all the crowd is in costume, and such
costume! The prevailing color for the robe is bright blue. Even the
coolies put on such a one when not working, and all above the coolies
wear them in rich, ribbed silk, lined with silk of a darker shade. Over
this a sleeveless jacket of rich dark blue or puce brocade, plain or
quilted, is worn; the trousers, of which little is seen, being of
brocade or satin. The stockings are white, and the shoes, which are on
thick, white, canoe-shaped soles, are of black satin. The cap, which is
always worn, and quite on the back of the head, is of black satin, and
the pigtail, or plait of hair and purse silk mixed, hangs down nearly
to the bottom of the robe. Then the most splendid furs are worn, and
any number of quilted silk and brocade garments, one above another. And
these big, prosperous-looking men, who are so richly dressed, are only
the shopkeepers and the lower class of merchants. The mandarins and the
rich merchants seldom put their feet to the ground.
The shops just now are filled with all sorts of brilliant and enticing
things in anticipation of the great festival of the New Year, which
begins on the 21st. At the New Year they are all closed, and the rich
merchants vie with each other in keeping them so; those whose shops are
closed the longest, sometimes even for two months, gaining a great
reputation for wealth thereby.
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