Sketches New and Old
Page 53
JOHN CHINAMAN IN NEW YORK
As I passed along by one of those monster American tea stores in NewYork, I found a Chinaman sitting before it acting in the capacity of asign. Everybody that passed by gave him a steady stare as long as theirheads would twist over their shoulders without dislocating their necks,and a group had stopped to stare deliberately.
Is it not a shame that we, who prate so much about civilization andhumanity, are content to degrade a fellow-being to such an office asthis? Is it not time for reflection when we find ourselves willing tosee in such a being matter for frivolous curiosity instead of regret andgrave reflection? Here was a poor creature whom hard fortune had exiledfrom his natural home beyond the seas, and whose troubles ought to havetouched these idle strangers that thronged about him; but did it?Apparently not. Men calling themselves the superior race, the race ofculture and of gentle blood, scanned his quaint Chinese hat, with peakedroof and ball on top, and his long queue dangling down his back; hisshort silken blouse, curiously frogged and figured (and, like the rest ofhis raiment, rusty, dilapidated, and awkwardly put on); his blue cotton,tight-legged pants, tied close around the ankles; and his clumsyblunt-toed shoes with thick cork soles; and having so scanned him fromhead to foot, cracked some unseemly joke about his outlandish attire orhis melancholy face, and passed on. In my heart I pitied the friendlessMongol. I wondered what was passing behind his sad face, and whatdistant scene his vacant eye was dreaming of. Were his thoughts with hisheart, ten thousand miles away, beyond the billowy wastes of the Pacific?among the ricefields and the plumy palms of China? under the shadows ofremembered mountain peaks, or in groves of bloomy shrubs and strangeforest trees unknown to climes like ours? And now and then, ripplingamong his visions and his dreams, did he hear familiar laughter andhalf-forgotten voices, and did he catch fitful glimpses of the friendlyfaces of a bygone time? A cruel fate it is, I said, that is befallenthis bronzed wanderer. In order that the group of idlers might betouched at least by the words of the poor fellow, since the appeal of hispauper dress and his dreary exile was lost upon them, I touched him onthe shoulder and said:
"Cheer up--don't be downhearted. It is not America that treats you inthis way, it is merely one citizen, whose greed of gain has eaten thehumanity out of his heart. America has a broader hospitality for theexiled and oppressed. America and Americans are always ready to help theunfortunate. Money shall be raised--you shall go back to China--you shallsee your friends again. What wages do they pay you here?"
"Divil a cint but four dollars a week and find meself; but it's aisy,barrin' the troublesome furrin clothes that's so expinsive."
The exile remains at his post. The New York tea merchants who needpicturesque signs are not likely to run out of Chinamen.