COA-PERATION IN MARKETS AND FAIRS
In many parts of China the farmer
comes much nearer to independence as regards producing
what he needs, than any class of persons in Western
lands. This is especially the case where cotton
is raised, and where each family tries to make its
own clothing from its own crops. But even with
the minute and indefatigable industry of the Chinese,
this ideal can be only imperfectly reached. No
poor family has land enough to raise all that it requires,
and every family not poor has a multitude of wants
which must of necessity be supplied from without.
Besides this, in any district most families have very
little reserve capital, and must depend upon meeting
their wants as they arise, by the use of such means
as can be secured from day to day. The same comparative
poverty makes it necessary for a considerable part
of the population to dispose of some portion of its
surplus products at frequent intervals, so as to turn
it into the means of subsistence. The combined
effect of these various causes is to make the Chinese
dependent upon local markets to an extent which is
not true of inhabitants of Occidental countries.
The establishment of any market, and
even the mere existence of the class of buyers and
of sellers, doubtless involves a certain amount of
cooperation. But Chinese markets while not differing
materially from those to be found in other lands,
exhibit a higher degree of cooperation than any others
of which we know. This cooperation is exhibited
in the selection both of the places and of the times
at which the markets shall be held. The density
of population varies greatly in different provinces,
but there are vast tracts in which villages are to
be met at distances varying from a quarter of a mile
to two or three miles, and many of these villages
contain hundreds, and some of them thousands of families.
At intervals of varying frequency,
we hear of towns of still larger size than these called
chen-tien, or market towns, and in them there
is sure to be a regular fair. But fairs are not
confined to the chen-tien, or the needs of
the people would by no means be met. Many of the
inferior villages also have a regular market, frequented
by the neighbouring population, in a circle of greater
or smaller radius according to circumstances.
As a rule a village seems to be proud of its fair,
and the natives of such a place are no doubt saved
a vast amount of travel for the number of people who
do not attend a fair is small.
We have met with one case of a village
which once had a market, and gave it up in favour
of another village, for the reason that the collection
of such a miscellaneous assemblage was not for the
advantage of the children and youth.
The market is under the supervision
of headmen of the town, and some markets are called
“official,” because the headmen have communicated
with the local magistrate, and have secured the issuing
of a proclamation fixing the regulations under which
business shall be transacted. This makes it easier
to get redress for wrongs which may be committed by
bad characters who abound at village markets in the
direct ratio of the number of people assembled.
Many of the larger markets bring together several
thousand people, sometimes exceeding ten thousand in
number, and among so many there are certain to be
numerous gamblers, sharpers, thieves, and pick-pockets,
against whom it behoves every one to be upon his guard.
It occasionally happens that a feud arises between
two sets of villages, as for example over an embankment
which one of them makes to restrain the summer floods,
which would thus be turned toward the territory of
the other villages. In such cases it is not uncommon
for the parties to the quarrel to refuse to attend
each other’s markets, and in that case new ones
will be set up, with no reference to the needs of the
territory, but with the sole purpose of breaking off
all relations between neighbours.
In regions where animals are employed
for farm-work, all the larger markets have attached
to them “live-stock fairs,” at which multitudes
of beasts are constantly changing hands. It is
common to find these live-stock fairs under a sort
of official patronage, according to which the managers
are allowed to levy a tax of perhaps one per cent.
on the sales. Of this sum perhaps ten per cent.
is required by the local Commissioner of Education
(hsiao-li) for the purpose of supporting his
establishment. The rest will be under the control
of the village headmen, perhaps for the nominal purpose
of paying the expenses of a free school, the funds
for which not improbably find their way largely or
wholly into the private treasuries of those who manage
the public affairs of the village.
The times at which village markets
are held vary greatly. In large cities there
is a market every day, but in country places this would
involve a waste of time. Sometimes the market
takes place every other day, and sometimes on every
day the numeral of which is a multiple of three.
A more common arrangement however seems to be that
which is based upon the division of the lunar month
into thirty days. In this case “one market”
signifies the space of five days, or the interval between
two successive markets. It is in the establishment
of these markets that cooperation is best illustrated.
If a market is held every five days, it will occur
six times every moon, for if the month happens to
be a “small” one of twenty-nine days,
the market that belongs on the thirtieth is held on
the following day, which is the first of the next
month. The various markets will be designated
by the days on which they occur, as “One-Six,”
meaning the market which is held every first, sixth,
eleventh, sixteenth, twenty-first, and twenty-sixth
day of the moon. In like manner “Four-Nine,”
denotes the market attended on the fourth, ninth,
fourteenth, nineteenth, twenty-fourth, twenty-ninth
days, similarly with the rest. Every village
will probably have a market within reach every day
in the month, that is to say, every day in the year.
In one direction for example is to be found a “One-Six”
market, in another “Two-Seven,” in still
others a “Three-Eight,” a “Four-Nine,”
and a “Five-Ten.” Some of these will
be small markets, and some much larger, but the largest
one will be attended by customers, especially wholesale
dealers in cotton, cloth, etc., from great distances.
The Chinese make nothing of walking to a market three,
eight, or even ten miles away; for it is not a market
only, but a kind of general exchange, where it is
proverbially likely that any one will meet any one
else.
Every village being thus surrounded
with a ring of markets, each of these is also a cog
in a wheel, playing into other wheels on each side
of it. All those who attend a large market come
to have a wide acquaintance with persons for great
distances on each side of them, and the needs of all
persons both buyers and sellers are adequately met.
The word which we have translated
“market” (chi) denotes merely a
gathering, and another character, (hui) is reserved
for an assemblage of a much larger character, which
is properly a fair. The number of persons who
attend these fairs frequently rises to between ten
and twenty thousand, giving a stranger the impression
that the entire population of several counties must
have been turned loose at once. Fairs are to be
found in the largest Chinese cities, as well as in
towns of every grade down even to small hamlets, though
the proportion of towns and villages which support
a fair is always a small one. It appears to be
a general truth that by far the larger part of these
large fairs owe their existence to the managers of
some temple. The end in view is the accumulation
of a revenue for the use of the temple, which is accomplished
by levying certain taxes upon the traffic, and by
the collection of a ground-rent. The latter is
also a feature of the village market, the proprietor
of each bit of ground appearing at each market to
collect of the persons who have occupied his land,
either a fixed amount, or a percentage upon their
sale or supposed sales.
In the larger centres of population,
it is common to find fairs held for a month or more
at a time, and in some places there are several of
these fairs every year, forming the centres of activity
around which all the life of the place revolves.
In such places the inhabitants make a good profit
by renting buildings to the multitudes who come from
a distance to sell and to buy, and where this is the
case, when the fair is not in operation the city frequently
appears to be nearly extinct. But trade no sooner
begins, than countless thousands throng the lately
almost deserted streets.
In order to make a fair a success,
it is necessary that the managers should be men of
enterprise and of sufficient business ability to deal
with the many difficulties which are likely to arise.
They exercise a certain supervision over everything,
and are technically responsible for what goes wrong,
though this responsibility they frequently evade.
In order to attract a large attendance, it is generally
necessary for fairs which are to last four days, to
begin with a theatrical representation, which continues
till the close. Sometimes, however, the players
fail to appear, and in that case the whole fair may
come to nothing. These large fairs are attended
by merchants representing cities many hundred miles
distant, and dealing in every article which is likely
to attract customers.
As the means of transportation are
very inadequate and locomotion is always slow and
difficult, the merchants who go about from one fair
to another for many months of the year, lead a life,
or rather an existence, which is far from enviable.
The half-month holiday with which the Chinese year
begins is no sooner over than the large fairs begin
also, and they continue with intermissions throughout
the rest of the year. There is a brief interval
for the wheat harvest, an event of the greatest importance
to every class of the population, and the rainy season
generally causes another interruption, often so serious
a one as to upset all plans for two months or more.
The principal cooperative element
in fairs lies in so arranging them as to dovetail
into one another with least loss of time to the travelling
merchants. The success generally attained is offset
by many conspicuous failures, due to the Chinese thirst
for gaining advantage over rivals, irrespective of
the interests of others, which in matters involving
cooperation, often results in disappointment.
Thus, it is not uncommon to find that while the posters
announcing a fair have been put up all through the
country-side for an entire month, no one can tell when
it is really to begin. That the day for beginning
is “fixed” is a point of no consequence
whatever, for with the exception of eclipses nothing
in China is so “fixed” that it is not
subject to alteration, and this exception may be thought
to be due to the circumstance that eclipses are not
under the supervision of the Chinese. We have
known repeated instances in which persons who wished
to attend a large fair, the date of which has been
“fixed” for generations, have travelled
many miles at great inconvenience, once and again,
only to find that it was delayed owing to the fact
that nobody had come, every one being apparently engaged
in waiting for every one else. But infelicities
like this are universal and constant in China, where
punctuality is “a lost art.”