As A Chinaman Saw Us: Passages from His Letters to a Friend at Home
General
As A Chinaman Saw Us: Passages from His Letters to a Friend at Home
United States -- Description and travel; United States -- Social life and customs
Again we read, in the treaty ratified under the Hayes administration,
that the Government of the United States, "if its labor interests are
threatened by the incoming Chinese, may regulate or limit such coming,
but may not _absolutely prohibit_ it." The United States Government has
disregarded its solemn treaty obligations. Not only this, our people,
previous to the Exclusion Act, were killed, stoned, and attacked time
and again by "hoodlums." The life of a Chinaman was not safe. The labor
class in America, the lowest and almost always a foreign class, wished
to get rid of the Chinaman so that they could raise the price of labor
and secure all the work. China had reason to go to war with America for
her treatment of her people and for failure to observe a treaty. The
Scott Exclusion Act was a gratuitous insult. I hope our people will
continue to retaliate by refusing to buy anything from the Americans or
sell anything to them. Let us deal with our friends.
Then came the Geary Bill, which was an outrage, our people being thrown
into jail for a year and then sent back. I might quote some of the
charges made against our people. Mr. Geary, I understand, is an Irish
ex-congressman from the State of California, who, while in Congress, was
the mouthpiece of the worst anti-Chinese faction ever organized in
America. He was ultimately defeated, much to the delight of New England
and many other people in the East. Mr. Geary's chief complaint against
the Chinese was that they work too cheaply, are too industrious, and do
not eat as much as an American. He obtained his information from Consul
Bedloe, of Amoy. He says the average earnings of the Chinese adult
employed as mechanic or laborer (in China) is five dollars per month,
and states that this is ten per cent above the average wages prevailing
throughout China.
The wages paid, according to his report, per month, to blacksmiths are
$7.25; carpenters, $8.50; cabinet-makers, $9; glass-blowers, $9;
plasterers, $6.25; plumbers, $6.25; machinists, $6; while other classes
of skilled labor are paid from $7.25 to $9 per month, and common
laborers receive $4 per month. In European houses the average wages paid
to servants are from $5 to $6 a month, without board. Clothing costs per
year from 75 cents to $1.50. Out of these incomes large families are
maintained. He says: "The daily fare of an Amoy working man and its cost
are about as follows: 11/2 pounds of rice, 3 cents; 1 ounce of meat, 1
ounce of fish, 2 ounces of shell-fish, 1 cent; 1 pound of cabbage or
other vegetable, 1 cent; fuel, salt, and oil, 1 cent; total, 6 cents.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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