A CHINESE HOUSE.

Gisborne Times, Volume XXIX, Issue 3273, 19 July 1911, Page 2

A CHINESE HOUSE.

DECORATIONS AND FURNISHINGS.

Most foreigners, not provided for by their own'governments, are able to get houses in Pekin only outside the walls of the Legation Quarter. There are many attractions in a better class Chinese residences, but there are also disadvantages. The seclusion is the chief charm; the main drawback is the approach. ■ ; The cold of winter, however, has a salutary effect upon the hutungs, or allies, through which one has to go to most of the homes that lie beyond the legations. The winter in Pekin is dry and dusty, and refuse of any sort thrown out on the soon freezes and becomes covered with fine particles of sand. So the approaches at this season are not so bad as in the spring, when the ground begins to thaw, or in the summer, when the rain makes sloughs of the filthy alleys. You would think (that the paper windows that screen the inner sides of the house, those which face on the courtyards, would afford very little protection from the winds that come down from the desert; but this seems not to be the case, though some Europeans and Americans prejudiced in favour of their own ideas displace the. pa per with glass. And then they curtain the glass to prevent glare and to shade the room, whereas with paper the light is always softened. The Pekin house, never an upper story, is built on four sides, or on three, with a wall on the fourth, round a paved court. The court is never very large, the house, or rather houses, are never very high, these rooms in them never spacious. The rooms of one side connect, but' you: must cross the court to get from house to house. When foreigners take these houses, they put in not only a’ staff of coolies, or laborers, to clean the place thoroughly, but also a carpenter and his assistants and many whitewashes and painters. The ‘rock gardens, which the Chinaman loves, give place to flower beds or potted plants—the Chinaman loves flowers, too; and produces beautiful ones, though often distorted into unnatural shapes. The several bouses are made to connect by corridor, or by extra bits of roof and walls fitted to the corners, and’within the houses the flimsy partitions of reed and paper are taken away, leaving one or two long rooms where there were six.

But all that js best in the Chinese house according to the notion of the man—and his wife—from the West, is retained. They keep the gently curving green-tiled roofs, with their collection, on the corners, of queer little' green-tile animals, such animals as one never sees in life. They keep the curious decorations of flowers and' birds, and animals beneath the eaves. And if there be inscriptions running down the door-posts, they keep these, too, unless the posts need painting badly. If there is a very fine screenin brick or stone, with a sculptured medallion, cutting off the view of the' first courtyard—for there may be a succession of courts —that is left, of course; and also the huge metal bowl of three-foot diameter, intended for. lotus growing in the summer. In furnishing the house the Chinese artisan plays his native part with little variations. The man who makes reed matting comes and weaves coverings to fit the floors. The carpet-weaver creates a special design at your order or suggestion, a design of solid grey, or blue or red, with a border of a fitting color, and in the centre a huge Chinese character representing, perhaps, your Chinese name, or it may be that standing for "good luck,” "long life,” or ‘‘prosperity. Your of: Chinese silk of the Imperial yellow.;, the pictures on your walls are handpainted scrolls of lovely flowers, hideous dragons, or grotesque human ueings, the tones always very good:, Your furniture is made by a native. The stiff-backed chairs which serve for decoration, because they are so quaint of shape and so beautifully carved of hard wood, are the result purely of Chinese art and imagination; but those which one uses to sit on are copies of Western models. The tables are similar to those that mandarinsuse—with the legs cut down to make them accord with our lower chairs. Everything is of hard wood-—for hard' wood is cheap in this country—stained' generally in black. All your woodwork, floors as well as furniture, will give you some terrible alarms—unless you have been warned 7 beforehand and see to it that- only seasoned wood is used; For purposes of ecenomy the Chinese carpenter generally keeps no stock of lumber; or, if' he does, he keeps it iii the form of uncut logs. When he receives an order he begins to cut, and so anxious is he to get his money that he proceeds with the construction and the painting or the staining sometimes before the planks are even dry. While you are sitting at a table eagerly reading your last Home paper, from five to seven weeks- old; a sudden report like a pistol shot right under your nose will cause the dishes to jump and may even overturn tlie lamp. It is nothing more, however: than the splitting of the centre board'. At night, after you have listened to tales of burglars who fill their queues with pins so that you cannot hold them, and of desperate men who are unable to pay their debts at the New Year’s season, the explosions of your new furniture, waking you from sleep, are numetimes very alarming. Your tablecloths and napkin arty European, of course, but the little mats about a foot square, or- round are the centre pieces from a court official’s .coat. These bits of gokl and silver thread, worked into the shapes of dragons or birds on the finest quality of silks, decorate in their normal size, the chests and backs of dignitaries of the Iniperial Palace. Dainty little oddments of brass adorn your shelves and. the tables in your library. Small incense burners, with elephants heads and trunks for feet, are used as ash-trays or pin-boxes. Kettles with twisted dragons on them serve for boiling water for tea. Your finger-bowls are what the Chinese use for serving rice. Then you have many brass trays, some very oddly worked, and if you have a love for things uncanny, a brass-lined Mongolian skull. Many tilings that jtou do and many articles that you use cause your "boys” a good deal of half-concealed merriment, for the Chinese all have a sense of humor. You bring home one day, for instance, two or three deep dishes of polished brass, which you thlmc will serve as fruit dishes and for nuts and candles, and you find when you go into your yard a day or two later, while the barber is there,. that such vessels are used by that individual, who comes twice a week to shave round the queues of your servants. j