Chinese Judge and the Pig Whisperer

Bill Brown ... Xiamen University

A century ago, Xiamen's foreigners were quite impressed with both the imagination and the sense of humor of Chinese judges--as well as their humanity. I enjoyed this excerpt from MacGowan ("Men and Manners of Modern China," 1912, pp. 164-6), in which a Chinese judge appealed to a goddess to solve a crime!

CHINESE JUDGES

The Chinese judge, having nothing to control his decisions excepting his own free will, frequently settles cases after a very free and easy method. He sometimes shows great common-sense and ingenuity in the ruses adopted to elicit the truth in some disputed case. An amusing instance occurred some time ago, when the mandarin showed himself to be a man of humour and one well acquainted with the ins and outs of the Chinese mind. A Chinese went abroad and stayed away for fifteen years, where he accumulated quite a comfortable little sum, with which he determined to return home and spend the rest of his days in comfort. Night had fallen when he reached the entrance of the village where his home was. During all the years he had been away no letter had passed between him and his wife, and no tidings had ever reached him about her or his home. Was she alive? And, if so, would she receive him kindly after the neglect of years? His mind was so agitated about the reception he was likely to receive that he took the bar of gold into which he had converted his savings, and hid it in the ashes of the incense dish in front of the village idol in the public temple, and then with beating heart he made his way to his home. He found his wife alive, and to his delight she received him without any reproaches. She was too happy to have him back again to dream of scolding him. As they sat talking he told her how much money he had made and how it was then in the incense dish in front of the Goddess of Mercy in the village temple. He tried to tell her this in a low voice, but he did not succeed. A Chinese does not seem to know how to whisper. He can shout and bawl and howl, but the art of speaking quietly into another’s ear is a lost one in China. The expression “in a pig’s whisper” would be utterly misunderstood in this land.

At a crack in the wall that separated his house from his neighbour’s was an ear that drank in every word that was uttered by husband and wife. It seemed glued to it. It was fascinated, indeed, by the strange stories that poured into it, and when the tale of the gold bar was related it thrilled with joy, for it seemed as though some fairy had come to reveal a hidden fortune. Next morning, before the dawn of the day, the husband wound his way silently to the temple for his gold bar, but to his horror he found it was gone. He at once accused his neighbor of the theft, but the latter declared that he had not even heard of his return, and , therefore, he could not possibly have known anything about his gold. Finding it useless to discuss the matter, he hurried to the nearest mandarin and laid his complaint before him. This official happened to be a man of humour as well as a very sagacious one. He summoned the accused before him and ordered him to restore the gold. This the man declared he could not do for the simple reason that he had never taken it. The mandarin, who was convinced of his guilt, now determined to adopt a ruse which he believed would be successful. He ordered his policeman to go to the village temple and bring the idol in whose incense dish the gold had been concealed into his presence. When it arrived he asked the goddess who had stolen the gold. Profound silence was the only reply. “Don’t you consider it your duty to tell me who the thief is, seeing that the money was practically entrusted to you care?” asked the mandarin. Still no reply. Upon this the judge became indignant and accused the idol of want of respect to him, and also of neglect in allowing a theft to take place in a temple that was her residence. The mandarin now adjourned the case for a day and in an angry tone threatened the goddess that if she did not confess then he would have her publicly beaten with rods by his policemen.

That same evening the mandarin summoned the accused into his private room, and with a look of mystery on his face and in a voice trembling with emotion he said: “The goddess has confessed that it was you who stole the gold. She is furious with you, for you have made her ‘lose face’ to-day when I threatened before my whole court to have her beaten, and she vows vengeance against you and your whole family. She says she will make your fields barren and send sickness into your home. Yours sons will die, and when you leave the world there will be no one to worship at your tomb, and you will wander a hungry and wretched spirit in the land of the shades. The only way in which you can avert the wrath of the goddess is by an instant confession. If you do this, I will use all my influence to get her to forgive you.” The man was so terrified at the prospect of such awful calamities awaiting him that, trembling and full of awe, he made a clean breast of it and restored the bar of gold to the rightful owner; and, though he was punished by the mandarin for his wrong, he considered he had got off lightly, since he had not to suffer the vengeance of the goddess.

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The U,S, Consul on Xiamen Law (1893)

Bill Brown ... Xiamen University
When D.C. Judge Roy Pearson, the fearless crusader against frivolous lawsuits, sued a Chinese laundry for $65.5 million after they lost their pants, the Chinese proprietors probably wished they were back in China where, according to Xiamen's U.S. Consul Mr. Edward Bedloe, Chinese are not a litigious society. At least they weren't in 1893, when Bedloe made his report--but times may be changing.

As Xiamen University's Law Department takes off, we have foreign lawyers crawling out of the woodwork, coming to learn and, scarier yet, to teach... I hope you enjoy this excerpt from Amoy U.S. Consul Bedloe's report in “Reports from the Consuls of the United States, Commerce, Manufactures, Etc., Vol. XLII, May, June, July and August, 1893”...

“To an American newcomer in China the laws respecting debt seem at first to be a labyrinth without a clew. Even a lawyer finds it difficult to determine the principles upon which Chinese jurisprudence is based. When, however, the student applies the touchstone of history and public policy, a system is disclosed which, thought it is at utter variance with any that prevails in countries that follow the common law or that employ a code, possesses great wisdom and practical merit. Time and space forbid a detailed account of the juridical development of China, but a brief synopsis may be of benefit to the reader.

In the first place, all Chinese law is customary law…. The law books (so called) of the country are hardly commentaries. They profess to be statements of what is considered right and proper by the community at large.

In the second place, the Chinese regard litigation as an evil and try to reduce it to a minimum. There are no lawyers, no costs, fees, or allowances. There are no calendars, rules of practice, judgment rolls, nor any of the machinery which makes the attorney so prominent a feature of civilized life. A magistrate hears and determines a case very much as a father does a dispute between to children, or, better still, as an arbitrator does a difficulty between two friendly merchants. In the main, justice is done in the premises and, it must be added, is done more speedily, cheaply, and thoroughly than by the tribunals of our own race.

In the third place, litigation being an evil, public policy has increased to a very large extent the number of obligations which have no legal or binding nature except the honor of the debtor. Many of these “debts of honor” will seem monstrous to the legal mind……

…Professional services at Chinese law have in the main no legal value. In practice a physician keeps a memorandum of his services, but seldom, if ever, sends a bill. When his work is done, the patient usually hands him an amount of money equal to what would have been charged under the American system. For this no receipt is given. The same principle applies to scribes, mediums, priests, and other professionals. As a heck upon non-paying customers shrewd professional men insist upon a note, I O U, or bond before doing any work. The document, no matter what its form, is as binding as ordinary business paper. It may be well to add at this point that a creditor has means of collecting debts which seem ridiculous to the Western mind. He depends upon the profound love of peace and tranquility so characteristic of the Chinese race. When a patron or client shows a disinclination toward payment, he visits the latter’s house, sits upon the threshold, and weeps and harangues until his bill is paid. It seldom requires more than an hour of lamentation to collect any reasonable claim.

In cases of insolvency legal debts and those of honor are almost invariably paid by the debtor if he retrieves his position. In very many cases the obligations of bankrupt have been assumed by his children and even grandchildren. This is a legal duty when the debt is legal in character. When it is a debt of honor, its payment by a second generation is considered an act of high filial piety.

A custom, probably peculiar to china, is that of mutual forgetfulness. Business men who have advanced moneys or sold goods on credit and find it impossible to collect their capital or to obtain payment in full of the amount due them, but who are on friendly terms with their debtors, will, after several years, call upon the latter and agree to “forget everything to date.” This is equivalent to a mutual release under seal and is highly favored by the great magistrates and priests of China. In conclusion, it may be stated that commercial litigation and insolvency are much rarer in China than in Europe or the United States. The number of tribunals, magistrates, and court officers is scarcely one-third, and the amount involved not a tenth, of what is at stake in the courts of Christendom.

Beyond the fear of going to law is the greater fear and disgrace of being a delinquent debtor. A Chinaman who becomes financially embarrassed will sell himself for a plantation coolie, go into exile for twenty years, or even commit suicide. It is part of his religion to pay off all he owes in the last week of the year, in order that he may begin the next one free from care and oblitatoin….

….The matter may be summed up in the remark that the expression “a debt of honor” in China is “a debt of duty,” and that one of their great maxims is “the highest good is the performance of every duty, even the humblest.”

Edward Bedloe, U.S. Consul, “Reports from the Consuls of the United States, Commerce, Manufactures, Etc., Vol. XLII, May, June, July and August, 1893”, U.S. Bureau of Foreign Commerce, Government Printing Office, Washington, 1893. pp. 500-503
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Who Will Run Xiamen's Foreign Consulates?

Bill Brown ... Xiamen University

Xiamen government seems to be taking the Field of Dreams approach in building its new "consulate district." "If you build it, they will come!" Or so they hope. Personally, I think they should have the consulates on Gulangyu Islet, where they used to be. While 100 years ago Gulangyu was the richest square mile on earth, today the government is struggling to break even, much less break a profit, on the tiny garden islet. Xiamen should abandon its periodic visions of transforming the former international settlement into a Chinese Disneyland and once again use Gulangyu's buildings for worthwhile purposes, such as consulates and schools. Of course, they haven't asked for my opinion...


Regardless of where the consulates are located, I do hope more countries open consuls here. It will be good for Xiamen, and good for the foreign countries as well. But newly arrived Consuls would do well to choose carefully their Chinese staff, lest locals not only dictate where consuls are located but also what goes on inside them as well! As MacGowan noted over a century ago, "weak-willed" foreign consuls can easily end up wrapped around the finger of their Chinese secretary, even as my household sometimes seems under the thumb of our helper of 20 years, the indefatigable Lixi! I hope you enjoy this amusing extract from John MacGowan's 1907 work, "Sidelights on Chinese Life" (1907, pp. 16,17).

Chinese in the Foreign Consulates
Perhaps the most conspicuous instance of the dominating influence of the Chinaman is seen in the foreign Consulates. In each of these there is a Chinese official employed that is called a writer. He is a gentleman and a member of the literary class. His duties are to write dispatches in Chinese to the mandarins and to be the one connecting link between the native authorities and the particular foreign Consul in whose service he happens to be. All petitions or complaints from the Chinese have to go through his hands, so that his position is one of great responsibility and power.

If the Consul happens to be a man of strong, independent character he will hold his own, and the business of the Consulate will be in a large measure under his own control.

If he is, however, easy-going or of average intellectual ability, he comes at once under the hypnotizing influence of the wily self-contained Chinaman, who before long becomes the master spirit in the office. This fact is so far realized by the leading mandarin of the place that he actually subsidizes him to influence the policy of the Consul to be favourable to him. A hostile writer could so easily influence his mind against the former, and cause such strained diplomatic relations, that he would incur the resentment of his superiors and be dismissed from his office.

I have known a case where the whole policy of a Consulate was dictated by the writer, who was a clever, intriguing scamp. All Chinese documents had to pass through his hands, and it depended upon the amount of the bribes received whether any of them got a dispassionate investigation at the hands of the Consul. His reputation became so bad that he was finally asked to resign, but he did so with a very comfortable fortune that enabled him to take a commanding position amongst the leading men in his neighbourhood.

In whatever direction one likes to take the Chinaman, he seems to have an hypnotic power that secures, if not favour, at least attention.
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