Reflections in a Ricksha

This ricksha is more comfortable than some.
The springs are not broken, and the seat is covered
with a white cloth.
Also the runner is young and sturdy, and his legs flash
pleasantly.
I am not ill at ease.

The runner interests me.
Between the shafts he trots easily and familiarly, lifting
his knees prettily and holding his shoulders
steady.
His hips are lean and narrow as a filly’s; his calves
might have posed for Praxiteles.
He is a modern, I perceive, for he wears no queue.
Above a rounded neck rises a shock of hair the shade
of dusty coal. Each hair is stiff and erect as a
brush bristle. There are lice in them no doubt
but then perhaps we of the West are too squeamish
in details of this minor sort.
What interests me chiefly is the back of his ears. Not
that they are extraordinary as ears; it is their
very normality that touches me. I find them
smaller than those of a horse, but undoubtedly
near of kin.

There is no denying the truth of evolution;
Yet as a beast of burden man is distinctly inferior.

It is odd.
At home I am a democrat. A republic, a true republic,
seems not improbable, a fighting dream.
Yet beholding the back of the ears of a trotting man
I perceive it to be impossible the millennium
another million years away.
I grow insufferably superior and Anglo-Saxon.
I am sorry, but what would you?
One is what one is.

Hankow

The Camels

Whence do you come, and whither make return, you
silent padding beasts?
Over the mountain passes; through the Great Wall; to
Kalgan and beyond, whither?...

Here in the city you are alien, even as I am alien.
Your sidling jaw, your pendulous neck incredible and
that slow smile about your eyes and lip,
these are not of this land.
About you some far sense of mystery, some tawny
charm, hangs ever.
Silently, with the dignity of the desert, your caravans
move among the hurrying hordes, remote and
slowly smiling.

But whence are you, and whither do you make return?
Over the mountain passes; through the Great Wall; to
Kalgan and beyond, whither?...

Peking

The Connoisseur: An American

He is not an old man, but he is lonely.
He who was born in the clash of a western city dwells
here, in this silent courtyard, alone.
Seven servants he has, seven men-servants. They
move about quietly and their slippered feet make
no sound. Behind their almond eyes move green,
sidelong shadows, and their limber hands are
never still.
In his house the riches of the Orient are gathered.
Ivory he has, carved in a thousand quaint, enticing
shapes pleasant to the hand, smooth with the
caressing of many fingers.
And jade is there, dark green and milky white, with
amber from Korea and strange gems beryl,
chrysoprase, jasper, sardonyx....
His lacquered shelves hold priceless pottery peachblow
and cinnabar and silver grey pottery
glazed like the new moon, fired how long ago
for a moon-pale princess of the East, whose very
name is dust!

In his vaults are incredible textures and colors that
vibrate like struck jade.

Stiff with gold brocade they are, or soft as the coat of
a fawn these sacred robes of a long dead priest,
silks of a gold-skinned courtesan, embroideries of
a lost throne.
When he unfolds them the shimmering heaps are like
living opals, burning and moving darkly with the
warm breath of beauty.

And other priceless things the collector has, so that
in many days he could not look upon them all.
Every morning his seven men-servants dress him, and
every evening they undress him. Behind their
almond eyes move green sidelong shadows.
In this silent courtyard the collector lives.
He is not an old man but he is lonely.

Peking

Sunday in the British Empire: Hong Kong

In the aisle of the cathedral it lies, an army rifle of
the latest type.
It is laid on the black and white mosaic, between the
carved oaken pews and the strip of brown carpet
in the aisle.
A crimson light from the stained-glass window yonder
glints on the blue steel of its barrel, and the
khaki of its shoulder-strap blends with the brown
of the carpet.

The stiff backs of its owner and a hundred like him
are very still.
The vested choir chants prettily.
Then the bishop speaks:
“O God, who art the author of peace and lover of
concord,... defend us thy humble servants
in all assaults of our enemies.”
“Amen!” say the owners of the khaki backs.

The light has shifted a little. On the blue steel barrel
of the rifle the glint is turquoise now.
That will be from the robe of the shepherd in the window
yonder, He of the quiet eyes....

Hong Kong

On the Canton River Boat

Up and down, up and down, paces the sentry.
He is dressed in a uniform of khaki and his socks are
green. Over his shoulder is slung a rifle, and
from his belt hang a pistol and cartridge pouch.
He is, I think, Malay and Chinese mixed.

Behind him the rocky islands, hazed in blue, the yellow
sun-drenched water, the tropic shore, pass as a
background in a dream.
He only is sweltering reality.
Yet he is here to guard against a nightmare, an
anachronism, something that I cannot grasp.
He is guarding me from pirates.

Piracy! The very name is fantastic in my ears, colored
like a toucan in the zoo.
And yet the ordinance is clear: “Four armed guards,
strong metal grills behind the bridge, the engine-room
enclosed in case of piracy.”

The socks of the sentry are green.
Up and down, up and down he paces, between the
bridge and the first of the life-boats.
In my deck chair I grow restless.

Am I then so far removed from life, so wrapped in
cotton wool, so deep-sunk in the soft lap of civilization,
that I cannot feel the cold splash of truth?
It is a disquieting thought for certainly piracy seems
as fantastic as ever.

The socks of the sentry annoy me. They are too
green for so hot a day.
And his shoes squeak.
I should feel much cooler if he wouldn’t pace so.
Piracy!

Somewhere on the River

The Altar of Heaven

Beneath the leaning, rain-washed sky this great white
circle beautiful!

In three white terraces the circle lies, piled one on
one toward Heaven. And on each terrace the
white balustrade climbs in aspiring marble, etched
in cloud.
And Heaven is very near.
For this is worship native as the air, wide as the
wind, and poignant as the rain,
Pure aspiration, the eternal dream.

Beneath the leaning sky this great white circle!

Peking

The Chair Ride

The coolies lift and strain;
My chair creaks rhythmically.
It is not yet morning and the live darkness pushes
about us, a greedy darkness that has swallowed
even the stars.
In all the world there is left only my chair, with the
tiny horn lantern before it.
There are also, it is true, the undersides of trees in
the lantern-light and the stony path that flows
past ceaselessly.
But these things flit and change.
Only I and the chair and the darkness are permanent.
We have been moving so since time was in the
womb.

The seat of my chair is of wicker.
It is not unlike an invalid chair, and I, in it, am swaddled
like an invalid, wrapped in layer on layer
of coddling wool.
But there are no wheels to my chair. I ride on the
steady feet of four queued coolies.
The tramp of their lifted shoes is the rhythm of being,
throbbing in me as my own heart throbs.

Save for their feet the bearers are silent. They move
softly through the live darkness. But now and
again I am shifted skilfully from one shoulder to
the other.

The breath of the coolies is short.
They strain, and in spite of the cold I know they are
sweating.
It is wicked of course!
My five dollars ought not to buy life.
But it is all they understand;
And even I am not precisely comfortable.

The darkness is thinning a little.
On either side loom featureless black hills, their summits
sharp and ragged.
The Great Wall is somewhere hereabouts.

My chair creaks rhythmically.
In another year it will be day.

Ching-lung-chiao

The Sikh Policeman: A British Subject

Of what, I wonder, are you thinking?
It is something beyond my world I know, something
that I cannot guess.
Yet I wonder.

Of nothing Chinese can you be thinking, for you hate
them with an automatic hatred the hatred of
the well-fed for the starved, of the warlike for
the weak.
When they cross you, you kick them, viciously, with
the drawing back of your silken beard, your
black, black beard, from your white teeth.
With a snarl you kick them, sputtering curses in short
gutturals.
You do not even speak their tongue, so it cannot be
of them you are thinking.

Yet neither do you speak the tongue of the master
whom you serve.
No more do you know of us the “Masters” than you
know of them the “dogs.”
We are above you, they below.
And between us you stand, guarding the street, erect
and splendid, lithe and male. Your scarlet turban
frames your neat black head,
And you are thinking.

Or are you?
Perhaps we only are stung with thought.
I wonder.

Shanghai

The Lady of Easy Virtue: An American

Lotus,
So they called your name.
Yet the green swelling pod, the fruit-like seeds and
heavy flower, are nothing like to you.
Rather, like a pitcher plant you are, for hope and all
young wings are drowned in you.

Your slim body, here in the cafe, moves brightly in
and out. Green satin, and a dance, white wine
and gleaming laughter, with two nodding earrings these
are Lotus.
And in the painted eyes cold steel, and on the lips a
vulgar jest;
Hands that fly ever to the coat lapels, familiar to
the wrists and to the hair of men. These too
are Lotus.
And what more God knows!

You too perhaps were stranded here, like these poor
homesick boys, in this great catch-all where the
white race ends, this grim Shanghai that like a
sieve hangs over filth and loneliness.
You were caught here like these, and who could live,
young and so slender in Shanghai?
Green satin, and a gleaming throat, and painted eyes
of steel,
Hunter or hunted,
Peace be with you,
Lotus!

Shanghai

In the Mixed Court: Shanghai

Two men sit in judgment on their fellows.
Side by side they sit, raised on the pedestal of the law,
at grips with squalor and ignorance.
They are civilization and they are very grave.

One of them is of my own people, a small man, definite,
hard-featured, an accurate weapon of small
calibre.
Of the other I cannot judge.
He is heavily built, and when he is still the dignity of
the Orient is about him like his robe. His head
is large and beautifully domed, his hands tapering
and aristocratic.
When he speaks it is of subtleties.
But when he speaks his dignity drops from him. His
eyes shift quickly from one end of their little slit
to the other, his mouth, his full brown mouth,
moves over-fast, his hands flicker back and forth.

The courtroom is crowded with ominous yellow poverty.
The cases are of many sorts.
A woman, she of the little tortured feet and sullen face,
has kidnapped a small boy to sell. A man was
caught smuggling opium. A tea-merchant, in
dark green silk, complains that he was decoyed
and held prisoner in a lodging-house for ransom.
A gambling den has been raided and the ivory
dominoes are shown in court.
The prisoners are stoically sullen. The odor of them
fills the room.

Above them sit the two men, raised on the pedestal
of the law, judging their fellows.
I turn to the man beside me, waiting his case.
“Tell me” I ask “of these men, which is the better
judge?”
He answers carefully.
“The Chinaman is cleverer by half. He sees where
the other is blind. But Chinese magistrates are
bought, and this one sells himself too cheap.”
“And the other?” I ask again.
“A good man, and quite honest. You see he doesn’t
care.”

The judges put their heads together. They are civilization
and they are very grave.
What, I wonder, is civilization?

Shanghai