XX HOW NOT TO DO IT IN PEKING

FOR the following amusing record of an actual experience I am necessarily indebted to a man friend, as for a lady to visit an official bureau in Peking and attempt to transact business would be considered trifling with its dignity, and naturally what befell her would be somewhat out of the usual course. My friend happily recorded his experiences at the time for a local newspaper.

" Having been informed of the proper course to take, and that I should do well to register my valuable trade-mark at the central office opened for the purpose in this city, I forthwith set about acting upon the advice tendered, and, for the sake of others who may wish to learn the ropes, I now relate my experience.

" All foreigners who come to Peking, either on business or pleasure, reside more or less in the Legation quarter, in and around which are located, in addition to the Legations of the different Powers, the principal hotels, stores, and foreign mission establishments. The Legation area abuts on the Winter Palace and the railway stations, and the famous Waiwupu, or ‘ Board of Foreign Affairs,' is not far off; the now extensive offices of the Inspectorate-General, which maintains a large staff in Peking, are equally in this, the southern and business quarter of the Tartar City. But the Shangpu, or ' Board of Trade/ is not in this quarter, nor could I find anybody to tell me where it was, and so, on the first day of my attempt, I had to abandon my prospective visit to the Registration Department as a bad job. However, my intelligent native ' boy ' undertook to discover the office and to provide a ricsha to convey me thither.

" So on the following day I set out upon my voyage of discovery. The ricsha-man, as Peking ricsha-men do, bowled along at a great pace, smothering me with dust, and whirling me through an intricate network of alleys and narrow lanes, and twisting round corners, over hillocks of garbage and through swamps of black mud, at the risk of my bones, if not of my life, much as do cabmen at home. They, too, prefer the by-way to the highway.

" A main street through which I passed was thronged with people gathered to witness the execution of a criminal by the lingchi process, and I had difficulty in making my way through the crowd The event was more than commonly interesting owing to the fact of the criminal being a high official. This man, it appeared, had, during the disturbances in 1900, murdered two whole families, and so acquired their possessions ; he was recently denounced by a woman, his guilt proved, and sentence passed accordingly. I would not be diverted, however, from my quest of the Shangpu, but a European who was present at the

execution told me that it was a most tragic spectacle ; the prescribed process was literally carried out, the pieces of flesh, as cut away, being thrown to the crowd, who scrambled for the dreadful relics. In China we are still in the Middle Ages.

11 The Shangpu, after many inquiries by my ricsha coolie on the way, was at last discovered in a back street away in the north-west quarter of the city, a three-quarter-hour run from the Legations. It turned out to be situated in a spacious Chinese ' Kungkuan,' with the customary courtyards and pavilions, all new and uncommonly clean very much more so than the sheds in which the famous Waiwupu, or Board of Foreign Affairs, transacts the business of the Empire with the outside world, I had been warned that my visit would be regarded with suspicion and cause a flutter in the official dovecotes, although I could not see why this should be the case, seeing that I was only bent on an ordinary matter of business, and to an office established ad hoc. Still, Chinese officials live in an atmosphere of suspicion and credit the barbarian with even more than their own ' tergitwistiveness/ Be that as it may, after sending in my card, I was kept waiting ten minutes, by my watch, on the doorstep in the cold wind, when at last a coolie appeared and wanted to know what my business was before admitting me. It was not an easy matter to explain to him that I had come to register a trade-mark, the Chinese language being somewhat inelastic where new-fangled foreign notions are concerned. However, he at last gathered that I was determined not to leave without an audience with somebody, and again left me on the doorstep. Another five minutes and the welcome announcement 'Ching' was made, and the coolie preceded me, holding aloft my rather insignificant-looking scrap of white pasteboard.

" Passing through several courts and low doorways, I was at last shown into a pavilion supported on eight pillars and surrounded with glass windows, with a wide-open door, through which I had entered on the south, and a similar door leading into another courtyard on the north, and through which the north wind was blowing strongly, although a Japanese screen mitigated its force. The spacious hall contained a foreign carpet, a centre table with a gaudy table-cover, four foreign armchairs, and teapoys, each guarded by two foreign chairs round the walls. The coolie, or 'tingchai,' disappeared, and I cooled my heels for another five minutes. Then the man returned with an ash-tray and a box of Japanese matches, which he placed with great deliberation exactly in the centre of the big table. Another long pause and a second man appeared with a teapot, which he solemnly placed on one of the side-tables, and then went out Hereupon the first man returned, and poured a cup of tea into a foreign tea-cup, which he ceremoniously placed before me and withdrew. At length the big man ' himself appeared through the north door, and, after having furnished him with a short autobiographical sketch of my career in the Celestial Empire, we came to the point, and, after smoking several cigarettes, which coolie No. One had meanwhile placed alongside the original match-box, my interlocutor proceeded to realise the object of my visit.

" ' Yes, this was the trade-mark registry office and was now in full swing/

"'Had many applications to register been made ? '

" 'Yes, several.'

" ' Any by Europeans ? J

" * None, so far/

1 f ' Whom by, then ? '

" * Mostly Japanese, also some Chinese/

" ' Could the big man oblige me by showing me the register and supplying me with the needful application forms ? '

"These I had seen at the office of the Imperial Maritime Customs, but that office transacts no direct business.

" The register was not visible, nor had the application forms yet been printed.