Halcyon Days in the Dream City

by Mrs. D. C. Taylor

Continued from Part 4

Still traveling along the Midway, we see on the right hand at some distance as yet, a temple that looks as if it had jumped out of the old dogs-eared geography we studied at school.[1] Two square towers composed of little balconies one above the other, each a little smaller than the last one, and all surmounted by a curved projecting roof, hung thickly along the edges with little tinkling bells. There is a high wind blowing to day, and upon the front of the temple, from every corner and door post, from every window, balcony, and roof peak, in fact from every possible and impossible place, are flying, fluttering, swinging and swaying, bobbing up and down, rattling and flapping, all sorts and sizes of flags, banners, balls and paper lanterns, in every imaginable color and gaudy intricacy of decoration.

As we near the entrance there strikes upon our ears a horrible crashing, clashing din, as if a car load of iron mongery had fallen from a tremendous height, and all shattered in fragments at once. We look around to see what the catastrophe has been, but the din continuing we finally locate it in an upper balcony crossing the inner entrance to the building, and discover that it is a Chinese band, presumably playing an overture from some Chinese opera.

On either side of the entrance, stands a hideous image of gigantic statuture [sic], bearing some faint resemblance to a man. Round bellied and deformed, with great goggling eyes, and long red tongue protruding from cavernous mouth, daubed in red and green and yellow, and profusely gilded, they represent the Chinaman’s God, emblems of his idea of divinity. Passing these frightful guardians we enter a dark low room smelling strongly of tea, and are met by a little yellow faced pig-tailed Chinaman, who politely invites us to look at his wares or take a cup of tea. Long tables are ranged up and down and around the room. These are covered with plates, bowls and cups of china ware, piles of lacquered trays and dishes of all kinds, tea pots of every conceivable style, shape and size, a very carnival of tea pots.

Great store of fanciful slippers all turning up in sharp curves at the toes, and long glass cases filled with the loveliest, delicate crape shawls, the only pretty things we saw in the whole Chinese exhibit. Things strange and wonderful we saw in plenty, but nothing beautiful or in any way attractive save for its novelty. Fans by the thousand, chopsticks, paper lanterns, over and over.

“Tickets sold here for Theatre and Joss House” met our eyes placarded upon the wall at the foot of a broad stairway, and investing a half dollar each in two yellow pasteboards we went up the stairs into a large bare walled amphitheatre filled with American opera chairs, and nothing unusual about it excepting an immense chandelier hanging in the center, formed of countless little square brass lanterns thickly hung with long gay silk tassels. The effect was really very good, and might be copied with advantage by some of our modern decorators.

The stage is empty when we enter, but soon after we are seated four Chinamen place themselves at the back of the stage, and begin smashing and banging with all their might on gongs, drums and great brass plates like cymbals. Then come in the actors, all dressed in long silk petticoats of almost indescribable richness, stiff with gorgeous barbaric embroidery of silk and gold thread, over which are short straight tunics of the same material, the long wide sleeves of which hang down below their finger tips. Every one of the men wears a long glossy black pigtail, and fantastic headdresses that look like bad dreams. The women are dressed exactly like the men, excepting that their hair is twisted high upon their heads and stuck full of long gilt pins. Their faces are painted a dead white, the cheeks a deep pink extending to the eyelids, and with their little, slit-like eyes, black as ink and slanting upwards at the outward corners, simpering mouths and flat noses they are queer looking objects, and strange to say, rather pretty, too.

They are excessively modest, keeping their hands always covered with their sleeves and folded before them when not in use. They walk with little mincing toddling steps to show their high social standing, for all highborn Chinese ladies are at least partial cripples, and they keep their mouths drawn into round o’s and speak in flat high pitched voices, all the time wearing a look of the most sanctimonious meekness.

And the play! for it must be a play! There is an immense amount of sitting down and getting up, of kneeling and knocking the forehead against the floor, of talking in flat sing song voices and hideous gibberish; of sitting down to lacquered and gilded little tables and drinking tea out of exquisite tiny cups, every man and woman holding them with the handle between the thumb and first finger, with the little finger sticking straight out. When the scene changes, the performers retire behind the flies, and two pig-tailed “supes” come out and rearrange the stage properties without any attempt at concealment whatever; when the acts are in progress these functionaries stand interestedly in the back-ground, while all the actors who are not engaged upon the stage, peep from behind the scenes, and over the tops of the low flies in plain view of the audience and watch their fellows with approving smiles, and now and then an encouraging word; at intervals the musicians set up their earsplitting din, and the actors smile calmly within two feet of the gongs. Stunned and deafened, and unable to endure the noise any longer, we leave the theatre and go up stairs into the comparative peace of the Joss house.

Here we see a Joss, catalogued as “the most popular Joss in China” and worshipped at the present time throughout the whole empire. No comment upon this is needed. Here we see a picture representing “an Emperor and his party on their way to visit the moon” how they found the road is not stated. A sleeping Buddha; a laughing Buddha; a Goddess; hideous nightmares all. A facsimile of the pagoda at Nankin; the original built of porcelain and 200 feet high. Story upon story, and in every story a “God.” The ten courts of hell; every infernal cruelty that the imagination of man can invent, represented by little wooden manikins inflicting and undergoing punishment. More nightmares; we feel as though we would like to wake up.

A little room furnished in Chinese style, a placard over the door announces that the lady within, who has an unpronounceable name, is of high rank, and great intellectual attainments, speaking English and several other languages. She looks very much like the ladies we saw on the stage and is rather pretty also, but she evidently does not understand English as well as she speaks it, for when we address her with a polite question, she takes it in high dudgeon, and turning her back upon us, flounces out of the room and out of sight.

Oh! strange, cold, homeless, heartless, heathen land! Good bye. Land of Buddha and Joss, of idol and image, of down-trodden women, priest and tyrant ridden men. A strange depression of mind and sickness of heart comes over us. The glare, the gaud, the dreadful din are too much to be borne, we hurry down the stairs, through the tea house, and out into the “Midway” and looking back at the flaring, juggling show thank our stars that we were not born in the “Flowery Kingdom.” But they make good tea though; we drank some, called “Syie Seern” strange name, but delicious flavor, we bought two packages and took them home, but it needed a Chinamen with long eyes to brew and serve it, for when Bridget boiled it on her kitchen range, it never tasted the same. Perchance John made a little mistake, and the tea we bought, and the tea we drank, never grew upon the same shrub.

Continued in Part 6

NOTES

[1] The “Chinese Village and Theater” was operated by the Wah Mee Company. The compound consisted of a Chinese Theater, tea house and garden, café, Chinese bazaar, and “Joss House.” This village was one of the least popular and least profitable concessions on the Midway, due perhaps to either its location at the far western end of Midway Plaisance or rampant anti-Chinese sentiment in the United States in the 1890s (which Mrs. Taylor showcases in her xenophobic response).

[2] Could the “Syie Seern” beverage that Mrs. Taylor describes be Shui Xian tea?