Page:Chinese Characteristics.djvu/157

Rh dwellings are undoubtedly the dampness and the cold. The radical error in the construction of buildings, is that which economises in the foundation. The inevitable and permanent result is dampness. Floors of earth or of imperfectly burned brick are to most foreigners not only sources of great discomfort, but are extremely prejudicial to health. Not less annoying are the loose doors, resting on pivots. The double leaves of these doors admit the cold air at each side at the top and at the bottom. Even if the cracks are pasted up with stout paper, a door is but an imperfect protection against the bitter winter weather, because it is almost impossible to teach Chinese to keep an outside door shut. The notice which a business man posted on his office door, "Everybody shuts the doors but you," would be a gross falsehood in China, where nobody shuts a door. The frames of doors, both to houses and to yards, are often made so low that a person of average stature must at each passage either bow his head or bump it. Chinese paper windows will not keep out wind, rain, sun, heat, or dust. Window-shutters are not very common, and when they exist are often unused. Most Chinese houses have only one cooking-boiler, a large concave iron bowl, with a capacity of several gallons. But one kind of food is generally cooked at a time, and when a meal is in preparation hot water is not to be had. The stalks and grass which are the fuel must be incessantly pushed under the low kettle by a person squatting or sprawling in front of the small flue. Almost all cooking is done in this way. Steam and often smoke fill the room to an extent adapted to blind and strangle a foreigner, but the Chinese seem to be indifferent to these evils, although aware that serious diseases of the eye are a common consequence.

A Chinese dwelling in winter always appears to a Westerner a thesaurus of discomfort, on account of the absence of artificial heat. The vast majority of the people, even where the