Interior of Chinese Temple
After this introduction I visited Maimaichin almost every day until leaving for Irkutsk. Maimaichin means ‘place of trade,’ and the name was given by the officer who selected the site. The town is occupied by merchants, laborers, and government employees, all dwelling without families. The sargootchay is changed every three years, and it was hinted that his short term of office sufficed to give him a fortune.
The houses were only one story high and plastered with black mud or cement. The streets cross at right angles, but are not very long, as the town does not measure more than half a mile in any direction. At the intersection of the principal streets there are towers two or three stories high, overlooking the town, and probably intended for use of the police. Few houses are entered directly from the street, most of them having court yards with gateways just wide enough for a single cart or carriage. The dwelling rooms and magazines open upon the court yards, which are provided with folding gates heavily barred at night.
Apart from the public buildings the houses were pretty much alike. Every court yard was liberally garnished with dogs of the short-nosed and wide-faced breed peculiar to China. They were generally chained and invariably made an unpleasant tumult. The dwelling rooms, kitchens, and magazines had their windows and doors upon the yards, the former being long and low with small panes of glass, talc, or oiled paper. In the magazines there were generally two apartments, one containing most of the goods, while the other was more private and only entered by strangers upon invitation. At the end of each room there was a divan, where the inmates slept at night or sat by day. Near the edge of the divan, was a small furnace, where a charcoal fire burned constantly. The rooms were warmed by furnaces with pipes passing beneath the divans or by Russian stoves.
In every place I visited there were many employees, and I did not understand how all could be kept busy. Everything was neat and well arranged, and the Chinese appeared very particular on the subject of dust. I attempted to buy a few souvenirs of my visit, but very little was to be purchased. Few strangers come to Maimaichin, and the merchants have no inducement to keep articles rarely called for.
I found they were determined to make me pay liberally. “How much?” I asked on picking up an article in one of their shops. “Chetira ruble” (four roubles) was the reply. My Russian companion whispered me not to buy, and after a few moments chaffering we departed. In a neighboring shop I purchased something precisely similar for one rouble, and went away rejoicing. On exhibiting my prize at Kiachta I learned that I paid twice its real value.
The Chinese merchants are frequently called scoundrels from their habit of overreaching when opportunity occurs. In some respects they are worse and in others better than the same class of men in Western nations. The practice of asking much more than they expect to receive prevails throughout their empire, and official peculation confined in certain limits is considered entirely consistent with honesty. Their cheating, if it can be called by that name, is conducted on certain established principles. A Chinese will ‘beat about the bush,’ and try every plan to circumvent the man with whom he deals, but when he once makes a bargain he adheres to it unflinchingly. Among the merchants I was told that a word is as good as a bond. Their slipperiness is confined to preliminaries.
China contains good and bad like other countries, but in some things its merchants rank higher than outside barbarians. When the English were at war with the Viceroy of Canton, the foreigners were driven out and compelled to leave much property with Chinese merchants. These Chinese never thought of repudiation, but on the contrary made their way to Hong Kong during the blockade of the Canton river for the purpose of settling with the foreigners.
Old John Bell of Antermony, who traveled to Pekin in the reign of Peter the Great, in the suite of a Russian Ambassador, makes the following observations on the Chinese:
“They are honest, and observe the strictest honor and justice in their dealings. It must, however, be acknowledged that not a few of them are much addicted to knavery and well skilled in the art of cheating. They have, indeed, found many Europeans as great proficients in that art as themselves.”
In the shops at Maimaichin there is no display of goods, articles being kept in closets, drawers, show-cases, and on shelves, whence they are taken when called for. This arrangement suggests the propriety of the New York notice: “If you don’t see what you want, ask for it.” Many things are kept in warerooms in other parts of the building, and brought when demanded or the merchant thinks he can effect a sale. In this way they showed me Thibet sheep skins, intended for lining dressing-gowns, and of the most luxurious softness. There were silks and other goods in the piece, but the asking prices were very high. I bought a few small articles, but was disappointed when I sought a respectable assortment of knick-knacks.
One of the merchants admired my watch and asked through my Russian friend how much it cost. I was about to say in Russian, ‘two hundred roubles,’ when my friend checked me.
“Dites un enorme prix; deux mille roubles au moins”
Accordingly I fixed the price at two thousand roubles. Probably the Chinaman learned the real value of the watch from this exaggerated figure better than if I had spoken as I first intended.
The merchants were courteous and appeared to have plenty of time at command. They brought sweetmeats, confectionery, and tea, in fact the latter article was always ready. They gave us crystalized sugar, resembling rock candy, for sweetening purposes, but themselves drank tea without sugar or milk. They offered us pipes for smoking, and in a few instances Russian cigarettes. I found the Chinese tobacco very feeble and the pipes of limited capacity. It is doubtless owing to the weakness of their tobacco that they can smoke so continuously. The pipe is in almost constant requisition, the operator swallowing the smoke and emitting it in a double stream through his nostrils. They rarely offered us Chinese wine, as that article is repugnant to any but Celestials. Sometimes they brought sherry and occasionally champagne.
I was interested in studying the decorations on window screens and fans, and the various devices on the walls. The Chinese mind runs to the hideous in nearly everything fanciful, and most of its works of art abound in griffins and dragons. Even the portrait of a tiger or other wild beast is made to look worse than the most savage of his tribe. If there ever was a dog with a mouth such as the Chinese artists represent on their canines, he could walk down his own throat with very little difficulty.
The language spoken in the intercourse of Russians and Chinese at Kiachta is a mongrel tongue in which Russian predominates. It is a ‘pigeon-Russian’ exactly analagous to the ‘pigeon English’ of Shanghai, Hong Kong, and San Francisco. The Chinese at Maimaichin can reckon in Russian and understand the rudiments of that language very well. I observed at Maimaichin, as at San Francisco, the tendency to add an ‘o’ sound to monosyllabic consonant words. A Chinese merchant grew familiar during one of my visits, and we exchanged lingual lessons and cards. He held up a tea-spoon and asked me its name. I tried him repeatedly with ‘spoon,’ but he would pronounce it ‘spoonee’ in spite of my instructions. When I gave him a card and called it such, he pronounced it ‘cardee.’ His name was Chy-Ping-Tong, or something of the kind, but I was no more able to speak it correctly than was he to say ‘spoon.’ He wrote his name in my note-book and I wrote mine in his. Beyond the knowledge of possessing chirographic specimens of another language, neither party is wiser.
Whoever has visited St. Petersburg or Moscow has doubtless seen the abacus, or calculating machine used in Russian shops. It is found throughout the empire from the German frontier to Bering’s Straits, not only in the hands of merchants but in many private houses. It consists of a wooden frame ordinarily a foot long and six inches wide. There are ten metal wires strung across this frame, and ten balls of wood on each wire. The Russian currency is a decimal one, and by means of this machine computations are carried on with wonderful rapidity. I have seen numbers added by a boy and a machine faster than a New York bank teller could make the same reckoning. It requires long practice to become expert in its use, but when once learned it is preferred by all merchants, whether native or foreign.
I saw the same machine at Maimaichin, and learned that it was invented by the Chinese. The Celestials of San Francisco employ it in precisely the same manner as their countrymen in Mongolia.
Beside the Chinese dwellers in Maimaichin there are many Mongol natives of the surrounding region, most of them engaged in transporting merchandise to and from the city. I saw several trains of their little two-wheeled carts bringing tea from the southward or departing with Russian merchandise, and in one visit I encountered a drove of camels on the neutral ground.