The "uncouthness" of the people must be understood in a relative sense only. In spite of the fact that the great majority are illiterate they possess in a marked degree the natural courtesy that characterises so many Oriental races. In considering this point with reference to Chinese in general one must not ignore the fact that they have been often guilty of rudeness and even savage brutality in their intercourse with Western foreigners; but to regard rudeness and brutality as permanent or prominent elements in the Chinese character would be absurd, for if such were the case every Chinese village would be in a chronic state of social chaos. Outbursts against foreigners, however inexcusable from a moral standpoint, are always traceable to some misunderstanding, to foreign acts of aggression or acts which the Chinese rightly or wrongly interpret as acts of aggression, or to abnormal political or social conditions for which foreigners are rightly or wrongly held responsible. Most unprejudiced foreigners are willing to admit that in normal times the Chinese are a singularly courteous people, except when they have taken on a veneer of Western civilisation in the treaty-ports[116] and have lost their national graces. If the Chinese behave politely to foreigners--whom they do not like--we may well suppose that in social intercourse with one another their manners are still more courteous: and this is undoubtedly true. Their rules of ceremony may seem, from the foreigner's point of view, too stiff and artificial, or exasperating in their pedantic minuteness. The European is inclined to laugh at social laws which indicate with preciseness when and how a mourner should wail at a funeral, what expressions a man must use when paying visits of condolence or congratulation, what clothes must be worn on different occasions, how a visitor must be greeted, how farewells are to be said, how modes of salutation are to be differentiated and how chairs are to be sat upon. But, after all, every race has its own code of polite manners, and rules that impress a foreigner as intolerably formal or as ludicrous seem quite natural to one who has been accustomed to them from his earliest childhood. The rules of Chinese etiquette may be stiff, but there is no stiffness about the Chinese gentleman--or about the illiterate Chinese peasant--when he is acting in accordance with those rules.