My Country and My People By Lin Yutang.

New 'York: Reveal & Hitchcock. A John Day Book, 1935

Reviewed by Nathaniel Pfeffer

Let me say at the outset that this is the best book on Chine on the English language. I say it with mixed feelings: with a little of envy, because I have myself written books on China, ape with more of a sense of vindication, since I have always believed that a truly revealing book on China could be done only by a Chinese, one who had a background of Western culture without at the same time having had his native cultural roots withered in the shallow sterilities of missionary colleges at home or the artificiality of undergraduate, 'courses" in America. Thus could be circumvented the two main causes of the deficiencies of all foreign books on China. The majority of foreigners cane to China too late to get more than an intellectual apprehension of the spirit of China and the feel of Chinese life. And many of them have left their own countries so early that they have not been deeply enough imbued with their own culture to be equipped for comparative judgments. In consequence they rush into glib comparisons, which have no merit or meaning.

This book proves my thesis. Mr. Lin is such a Chinese. He has lived in Europe and America and measured the ways of the West with a critical eye. He is widely read in Western literature, has an impressive erudition, and has not only "learned" Western culture but understands it. Withal he hat the mellowness, the wisdom, and the humor of his race. As I say, his book is therefore the best that has been written on China In English and I recommend it to all those who want a true and sensitively perceived picture of China. I recommend it also for its active insight into Occidental institutions, ideas, and ways of life. Mr. Lin saysof foreigners who want to write of China that they "must feel with the pulse of the heart as even as see with the eyes of the mind." He himself feels us with the heart.

It is difficult to sum up or characterize the contents of his book. He follows the precepts of the philosophy of Chinese art as he describes it-conveying the whole and the reality by the evocation of a mood with a few impressionistic steams. In the best sense of the word his book Is impressionistic rather than analytical or schematic. Lin Yutang tries to give a sense of why Chinese are different from others and why they are as they are: their attitude to life, their conception of society and men's relation to each other, their arts and literature. Without rigid plan or argument he makes you understand why they are what is miscalled fatalistic,' why they find efficiency uncongenial, why and how they get at least as much out of living as any other race despite their poverty, grime, misgovernment, and lack of comforts even why they have rapacious militarists, crooked politicians, and civil wars.

What stands out mainly is, first, the essential humanism of the Chinese people and, second, their love of nature, their inseparableness from nature. The end of living for the Chinese is to get as much enjoyment as possible out of the fleeting span between birth and death. To that end all religion, philosophy, esthetics and social organisation are bent. The Gothic spirit, the aspiring toward heaven, per aspera ed astra—all that means nothing to the Chinese. Still less does the other worldliness of Occidental religions. You're human and fallible; the universe is all-pie and nature invincible; the world is old and not very much has changed or ever will change or can change; progress is an Illusion; you have so little time to live and you can spend that time so pleasantly-- why worry? You need only be urbane and civilized and a gentleman and enjoy what nature offers. Men are mortal end never will he gods. 'The heavens never will bend to their will. Wisdom lies in mellowness and understanding and a just measuring of proportion, not in brilliance. There are the arts far your fulfilment.

It is unusual and refreshing to read a Chinese n China who does not have a sense of inferiority before the West and at the same tine does not idealize China. There are no illusions in Mr. Lin. He is as aware of what is wanting in his country as any Shanghai reporter. The difference Is that he understands causes. Like all thinking Chinese today he is despondent over the tragic plight of his country and the suffering of its people. I must, however, disagree with him on the causes and the remedy. To Confucianism and its exaltation of family and family obligations he attributes the lack of social consciousness. To the Confucian philosophy of government, which is based on the rule of superior men unguided and unchecked by impersonal law, he attributes the corrupt and oppressive government under which China suffers.

The lack of social consciousness in China is admitted. But the lack is not Chinese. The social consciousness he admires in the West is not a racial or cultural characteristic of the Western peoples. It Is a product of the time, of the social integration made possible by communications. There was no more social consciousness in Europe before the industrial revolution than there is in China now. In fact there was less In seventeenth century Europe than in seventeenth century China. It was just the relatively greater sense of collective trustee-ship in China that impressed the first European travellers and inspired Voltaire to encomiums. There can be no social consciousness when the village Is the social unit. And as you look at the Western world in 1935 there is not so much social consciousness when the nation is the social unit. What Mr. Lin bewails in this connection is really the fact that China has not yet mechanized, a fact which I do not think he bewails in general.

When, further, he sees China's hope in the institution of government by law instead of by men, he is only clutching at a straw desperation. I am afraid that when he was in Europe and Americans, he did not observe the washings of gave eminent by law closely enough. For whether you have an avowed government by men or an ostensible government by law you get government by men anyway, or, at the most government by lawyers in the interests of powerful men. Government by the kind of men who-now govern China is suicidal, but so long as such men are in power laws will only serve as their protective coloration.

Disagree with Mr. Lin or not over minor points, you will get a more veracious idea of China from his book than from any other book ever written, more perhaps than you will get by just living there and depending on your own faculties to grasp the untranslatable. And you will be stimulated and refreshed by a great deal of wisdoms about life and, incidentally, by an English style ad charm and occasional distinction.

HUMOR

Humor is a state of mind. More than that it is a point of view, a way of looking at life. The flower of humor blooms whenever in the course of development of a nation there is an exuberance of intellect able to thy its own ideals, for humor is nothing but intellect slashing at itself= in any period of history, when mankind was able to perceive its own futility, its own smallness, and its own follies and inconsistencies, a humorist appeared, like Chuangtse of China, Omar Khayyam of Persia, and...Aristophanes of Greece. Athens would be infinitely poorer had there been no Aristophanes, and the Chinese intellectual heritage would be infinitely less rich had there been no Chuangtse.

Since Chuangise lived and wrote, however, all Chinese politicians and bandits have become great humorists, because they have been imbued, directly or indirectly, with the Chuangtsean view of ilk. Laotse had laughed before him, a thin, shrill yet cataclysmic laugh-ter. He must have been a bachelor all his life, or he could not have laughed so roguishly. Anyway there is no record that he ever married or had any progeny. The last coughs of Laotsc's laughter were caught up by Chuangtse, and he, being a younger man, had a richer voice, and the ring of his laughter has reverberated throughout the ages. We still cannot resist a chance to laugh, yet sometimes I feel we are carrying the joke too fir, and laugh a little out of season.

The abysmal ignorance of the foreigner about China and the Chinese cannot be more impressive than when he asks the question: Do the Chinese have a sense of humor? It is really n3 surprising as if an Arab caravan were to ask: Are there sands in the Sahara desert? It is strange, however, how little person may see in a country. Theoretically, at least, the Chinese people should have humor, for humor is born of realism; and the Chinese are an unusually realistic people. Humor is born of common sense, and the Chinese have an overdose of common sense. Humor, especially Asiatic humor, is the product of contentment and leisure, and the Chinese have contentment and leisure to a supreme degree, A humorist is often a defeatist, and delights in recounting his own failures and embarrassments, and the Chinese are often sane, cool-minded defeatists. Humor often takes a tolerant view of vice and evil and instead of condemning them, laughs at them, and the Chinese have always been characterized by the capacity to tolerate evil Toleration has, then, a good and a had side, and the Chinese have both of them. If the characteristics of the Chinese race we have discussed above—common sense, toleration, contentment and old roguery —are true, then humor is inevitable in China.

Chinese humor, however, is more in deeds than in words. The Chinese have their words for the various types of humor, but the commonest type, called huach' i, in which sometimes the Confucian scholars indulge under pseudonyms, really means to me only "trying to be funny." Such writings are only literary relaxations of a too rigoristic classical tradition, but humor as such had no proper place in literature. At least there was no open acknowledgment of the role and value of humor in literature. Humor, indeed, abounds in Chinese novels, but novels were never accepted as "literature" by the classicists.

There is very first-class humor in Shiking (Book of Poetry), in the Confucian. Analects and in Hanfeitse., but the Confucian gentleman, brought up in his puritan view of life, could not see any fun in Confucius, just as he failed to see wonderful tender love lyrics in Shiking, giving them fantastic interpretations, as the Western theologians give of the Song of Songs. There is very fine humor in Tao Yuanming's writings, too, a sort of quiet leisurely content and a refined luxury of self-abnegation, the best example of which is his poem on his unworthy sons:

My temples are gray, my muscles no longer full.

Five sons have I, and none of them likes school.

Ah-shu is sixteen and as lazy as lazy can be.

Ah-hsuan is fifteen and no taste for reading has he.

Thirteen are Yung and Tuan, yet they can't tell six from seven.

A-t'ung wants only pears and chestnuts—in two years he’ll be eleven.

Then, come! Let me empty this cup, if such he the will of heaven.

Humor there is, too, in Tu Fu's and Li Po's poetry, Tu Fu who often produces in his readers a bitter smile, and Li Po who pleases by his romanticist nonchalance, but we do not call it -humor." The unholy awe in which Confucianism was held as the national religion also restricted the free expression of ideas and made the presentation of novel points of view and ideas taboo, and humor only lives on novel and original points of view. it is dear that such a conventional environment is not conducive to the production of humorous literature. If anyone were to make a collection of Chinese humor, he would have to cull it from the folk-songs and the Yuan dramas and the Ming novels, all outside the pale of the classical "literature," and in the private notes and letters of scholars (especially those of the Sung and Ming Dynasties), when they are a little of their guard.

But the Chinese have nevertheless a humor all their own, for they always love a good joke. it is humor of a grimmer sort, and based on the farcical view of life. In spite of the extremely serious style in their editorial and political writings, which are seldom relieved by humor, they often surprise the foreigners by the extremely, light manner in which they take important reform programs and movements, like the Kuomintang agrarian program, the Sanmin Doctrine, the flood and famine relief, the New Life Movement, and the Anti-Opium Bureaus. An American professor, recently visiting Shanghai and lecturing in the Chinese colleges, was completely surprised by the burst of laughter among the student audience whenever he made a perfectly sincere reference to the New Life Movemen.t. If he had made a serious reference to the Anti-Opium Bureaus, he would have been met by still louder volleys of silvery laughter. For humor is, as I have said, a point of view, a way of looting at life. With that view of life we are more or less familiar. Life is a huge farce, and we human beings are mere puppets in it The man who takes life too seriously, who obeys library reading-room rules too honestly, who actually keeps off the lawn because merely a signboard says SO, always makes a fool of himself and is usually subjected to laughter from his older colleague; and since laughter is contagious, very soon he becomes a humorist, too.

This humorist farcicality then results in the inability of the Chinese to take anything seriously, from the most serious political reform movement to a dog's funeral. The farcical element in Chinese funerals is typical. In the grandiloquent funeral processions of Chinese upper and middle classes, you can see street urchins with dirty fay wearing embroidered and multi-colored robs., accompanied, in modern China, by brass bands playing `Onward, Christian Soldiers," which facts are often adduced by Europeans as proofs of the Chinese lack of humor..A Chinese funeral proms-sion, however, is a perfect symbol of Chinese humor, for Europeans alone take a funeral procession seriously and try to make it solemn. A solemn funeral is inconceivable to the Chinese mind, Where the Europeans err is that, with their preconceived flatictin, they think a priori that a funeral should be a solemn affair. A funeral, like a wedding, should be noisy and should 'be expensive, but there is no reason why it should be solemn. Solemnity is alitady provided for in the grandiloquent gowns, and the rest is form, and form is in Shiking, giving them fantastic interpretations, as the farce. To this day, I cannot distinguish between a funeral and a wedding procession until I see a coffin or a wedding chair.

Chinese humor, then, as symbolized by the highly farcical funeral procession, consists in compliance with outward form as such and the total disregard of the substance in actuality. One who appreciates the humor of a Chinese funeral should be able to read and interpret Chinese political programs properly also Political programs and of statements are issued as matters of form, being drafted by clerks who specialize in a kind of specious, born. bashed phraseology, just as there are special shops keeping funeral procession gowns and paraphernalia for hire, and no intelligent Chinese ever takes them seriously. If foreign newspaper correspondents would bear this symbol of the funeral gown in mind, they would be less likely to be misled by them and then later give up the Chinese as a unique people that they fail to understand.

This farcical view of life and this formula regarding form and substance can be illustrated in a myriad different ways, Some years ap,, a government order, originating in a request from the Central Kuomintang, prohibited the Chinese government ministers from keeping Shanghai offices in the foreign concessions. The actual carrying out of this order would mean a great inconvenience to the ministers who have their homes in Shanghai, and throw a number of people out of jobs. The Nanking ministers neither defied the Nanking order nor petitioned for its repeal on honest grounds of inconvenience and impracticability. No professional clerk could be clever enough to draft any such petition and make it accord with good form, since it meant the desire of Chinese officials to reside in foreign settlements, which would be unpatriotic. They aid an infinitely cleverer thing by changing the door plates of their Shanghai offices and calling them trade inspection bureaus. The door plates probably cost twenty dollars a piece, no man was thrown out of a job, and no face was lost. The school trick pleased not only the Nanking ministers but also Nanking itself, where the original order was issued. Our Nanking ministers are great humorists. So are our bandits. So are our warlords. The humor of a Chinese civil wars has already been pointed out.

In contrast with this, we might take the case of mission schools showing the Western lack of humor. The missions were put into scare a few years ago when their registration was required, which involved the crossing out of religious instruction from the school curricula, the hanging of Sun Yatsen's picture in the assembly hall and the holding of Monday memorial meetings. The Chinese authorities, could not see why the mission schools -could not comply with these simple regulations, while the missionaries could not see their way dear to accepting them, and there was a deadlock. Some missionaries actually had visions of closing up their schools„ and in one instance, everything would have gone on smoothly except for the stupid honesty of the Western principal who refused to cancel one sentence from their school catalogue avowing religious instruction to be one of their aims. The principal wanted to be able to say honestly and openly that religious instruction was indeed the principal aim of their institution, and to this day, that school is not registered. There was absolutely no lightness of touch. What this mission school should haw done was to imitate the example of the Nanking ministers, comply with every official regulation, hang a picture of Sun Yatsen—and proceed a la chinoise as regards the rest. But I cannot help thinking that a school run with such stupid honesty must be an honest-to-goodness school.

Such is the Chinese farcical view of life. The Chinese language abounds in metaphors regarding the drama of human life. Chinese officials assuming and leaving their posts are spoken of as "enter. in the stage" and "making their exit," and a. an corning with a high-sounding program is referred to as "singing high opera" We really look upon life as a stage, and the kind of theatrical Show we like best is always high comedy, whether that comedy be a new constitution, or a bill of rights, or an anti-opium bureau, or a disbandment conference. We always enjoy it, but I wish our people would sometimes be serious. Humor, above everything else, is ruining China. One can have too much of that silvery laughter, for it is again the laughter of the old rogues at the touch of whose breath every flower of enthusiasm and idealism must wither and die.

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