op. cit. i. p. 368, and Giles, op. cit. p.
187.]

[Footnote 94: With regard to Lao-Tze, the book which bears his name is
of doubtful authenticity, and was probably compiled two or three
centuries after his death. Cf. Giles, op. cit., Lecture V.]

[Footnote 95: Quoted in Chap. IV, pp. 82-3.]

CHAPTER XII

THE CHINESE CHARACTER

There is a theory among Occidentals that the Chinaman is inscrutable,
full of secret thoughts, and impossible for us to understand. It may be
that a greater experience of China would have brought me to share this
opinion; but I could see nothing to support it during the time when I
was working in that country. I talked to the Chinese as I should have
talked to English people, and they answered me much as English people
would have answered a Chinese whom they considered educated and not
wholly unintelligent. I do not believe in the myth of the "Subtle
Oriental": I am convinced that in a game of mutual deception an
Englishman or American can beat a Chinese nine times out of ten. But as
many comparatively poor Chinese have dealings with rich white men, the
game is often played only on one side. Then, no doubt, the white man is
deceived and swindled; but not more than a Chinese mandarin would be in
London.

One of the most remarkable things about the Chinese is their power of
securing the affection of foreigners. Almost all Europeans like China,
both those who come only as tourists and those who live there for many
years. In spite of the Anglo-Japanese Alliance, I can recall hardly a
single Englishman in the Far East who liked the Japanese as well as the
Chinese. Those who have lived long among them tend to acquire their
outlook and their standards. New arrivals are struck by obvious evils:
the beggars, the terrible poverty, the prevalence of disease, the
anarchy and corruption in politics. Every energetic Westerner feels at
first a strong desire to reform these evils, and of course they ought to
be reformed.

But the Chinese, even those who are the victims of preventable
misfortunes, show a vast passive indifference to the excitement of the
foreigners; they wait for it to go off, like the effervescence of
soda-water. And gradually strange hesitations creep into the mind of the
bewildered traveller; after a period of indignation, he begins to doubt
all the maxims he has hitherto accepted without question. Is it really
wise to be always guarding against future misfortune? Is it pruden