Chinese Plays

EVENTS AND GOSSIP

            It may not be generally known that no woman is allowed to appear on the Chinese stage.  It is not everyone who would care to take in a Chinese show.  Curiosity prompted me on a couple of occasions to try it.  What was the play?  I don’t know – haven’t the slightest idea.  The Chinese are not an emotional people, even in their theatres.  There was a constant jabbering in the audience, and an occasional laugh, which led me to believe that there was something funny going on, but where the fun came in I failed to detect.  And then the orchestra!  Oh, what a fearful noise!  Did I sit it out?  Not I.  It takes anywhere from a week to a fortnight to get through an ordinary Chinese play.  I was curious enough to inquire who the leading lady was (all the players wore the bifurcating continuators), and then learned the bit of interesting history which I am now about to impart.  Away back in 1736 the Emperor Yung Tsching married an actress.  The Emperor did not long survive the ordeal and the empress dowager ruled the country for her son, Prince Kim Sung – alle samea present empress.  To satisfy her vanity this shrewd and most peculiar woman issued a decree forbidding, under pain of death by the sword of the executioner, any member of her sex to appear on the Chinese stage.  “After me, no one,” said the empress dowager, and since her day no woman within the reach of Chinese law has dared to test the strength of her decree.

            Verily the Chinese are a peculiar people, and I very much regret to observe that these peculiar people are rapidly increasing in numbers in Nelson.  A few years ago there did not seem to me to be a score of Chinamen in the city: now there are several hundred and still they come.  Nelson has now its Chinatown – that eyesore in every city in the west.  Up to a few months ago the Celestial invaders were scattered all over the city, and did not appear to be numerically strong; but since they have been obliged to live in one particular quarter it is a surprise to many to know that the pigtails are so numerous in our midst.  Up to date the Chinaman in Nelson have contented themselves with the work about hotels and boarding houses, laundries and the raising and peddling of vegetables.  On similar lines they initiated themselves in other communities which have since become Chinese strong-holds.  Slowly perhaps, but surely, John Chinaman pushes his way into other branches of business.  He gets a sewing machine and starts in making jeans, smocks, aprons, etc.; then becomes a tailor, and will make a good suit of clothes at half the price a white tradesman will charge, because John can live at one fifth the cost; he will next supply you with gent’s furnishings, and recommend you to one cousin who will repair your shoes or make you a pair to order; to another cousin who will saw your wood, kalsomine your house, paint your fence, dig your garden or a drain, clean out your office – in fact do anything a whiteman can do.  Then you will be told of the Chinese lottery, where to secure your tickets, of the fascination of fan-tan, and if you wish to experience the sensations of the opium-pipe the obliging Chinaman will direct you to where you will be accommodated.  These fellows are a bane to any community, and as such should be discouraged.  They will prove in Nelson, as they have proved elsewhere, a nuisance and a detriment to the working man and working woman.  Nelson now has her Chinatown, and I am sorry for it.