◆ 28 INTRODUCTION cording to the custom of the community such liberty was not allowed,and the young couple had no redress for the rough treat- ment. Age-old customs also rule over other spheres of life.For exam- ple,public sanitation is completely lacking.Up to 1943 sickly dogs were seen throughout the town,the dung of donkeys,horses and mules was everywhere,and children and even adults stopped to relieve themselves on the main thoroughfare or in any by-way. No one bothered to clean up the streets.About six years ago the missionary college and the local middle school organized a joint Chapter II campaign of public hygiene.Teachers and students of both insti- tutions carried out a general cleaning up of all the streets and YIN CHAI AND YANG CHAI killed about fifty homeless dogs.Quite a number of the local in- Worldly and Otber-Worldly habitants supported the effort.At the same time public lectures Residences were given in the main streets by some of the students on the im- portance and significance of the campaign.For some time there- ANYBODY who visits after the town was free from obvious heaps of dirt and other signs of uncleanliness.But the old way of life returned gradually, West Town cannot fail to be struck by the aspect and the size of some family and now few would even recall this campaign. homes and by the large number of new homes.West Town is only a small mar- u微 ket town in the interior of Yunnan.Its size and location make its appearance all the more striking. Most family homes are two-storied structures.The walls are usually of brick and stone,plastered with white or yel- low lime.The roofs are tiled,and the floors are made of wood or brick.The main portal of the family home (unlike the portals elsewhere in China and even in most parts of Yunnan)is very elab- orate.The gateway itself is built of brick,with a foundation of stone,like the rest of the walls,and is about seven or eight feet in height. On this structure elaborate hand-carved woodwork,connecting
30 WORLDLY,OTHER-WORLDLY RESIDENCES both lintels of the gateway,is superimposed (see drawing) Various geometrical or realistic designs are carved on the super- structure,which is usually painted in different colors,according to the carved designs,before being varnished or oiled.Above this wooden structure is a sort of tiled cover with wing-like projec- tions similar to the roof of a Peking palace. Often a family home has two or three portals,one leading into another.The outermost will have a triple top of brick and tile, with elaborate masonry and small wall paintings,while the next one beyond will have more of the carved woodwork and less of the masonry and wall painting.The third one will be much simpler than the other two. Hanging over the outermost or over the middle portal are often one or two plaques showing present or past honors bestowed upon members of the family.These are large varnished black plaques, with golden or pink characters indicating the nature of the honor and the name of the person who acquired it,as well as the date of the achievement.As pointed out before,elsewhere in China the honors thus displayed are those attained by members of the par- ticular family displaying them,sometimes two or three genera- tions earlier.For each honor there would be only one plaque over one portal of one family home.Not so in West Town.Here every honor attained will find itself indicated over the portals of sev- eral family homes.Many families display honors attained by a member of the clan who lived ten or more generations ago-and the member who attained this honor might have been a cousin many times removed.In this connection the principle of the- more-the-merrier is also followed.Thus on any one plaque there may be notices of several honors attained by different individuals A WEST TOWN GATEWAY who lived at different times.This provides the impression that the family has been continually on the side of the great.The de- sire for family honor is so acute that when real honors are not associated with any known member of the family,imaginary or alleged ones are inscribed on such plaques.There are plaques in- dicating that the house is the home of a fa fa(an official title
32 WORLDLY,OTHER-WORLDLY RESIDENCES applicable to various ranks which might be conferred upon X Kitchen (a) Y Kitchen the old father of the third assistant in a district government as well as that of a prefect),but mentioning neither the kind of a fr nor the particular person who attained the title.There are plaques on which are four dazzling characters stating that the family was"highly favored and lavishly bestowed upon by the emperor."The small inscription on the plaque illustrated here Court Yard (A) 宴 南 2 0 賜 罪 恩 鴻 布 Toilet子 Pig Sties Kitchen ( (6 Kitchen 使 3 Xx Ground Flooe PLAQUE SHOWING LAUDATORY INSCRIPTION shows that the family member concerned was merely a student in a government school in the reign of Kwang Hsu.He either passed a preliminary examination or bought his way to such a studentship and could not,therefore,proceed any farther.Such 誉 an honor would not be displayed at all elsewhere in China.An other way of showing the same honor in West Town is to display a plaque on which is written"First step in offcial ranks( teng shib chieb). Entering the outermost portal,facing east,the visitor would come upon a second one,facing south;the innermost one would face east again.Then he would enter the courtyard.The house may consist of oneor two main courtyards,but would certainly Second Floor comprise more than one minor courtyard.The diagram of the C HOUSE C house represents the typical one-main-courtyard type,while
34 WORLDLY,OTHER-WORLDLY RESIDENCES the diagram of the Y house represents the typical two-main- courtyards type.As a rule,there are three rooms on each floor to each of the four sides enclosing a courtyard,which is usually Kitchent 8 A 62) Kitchenv paved with slabs.The rooms on the ground floor are the living quarters of the family.In the diagram of the C house,B indicates bedrooms and A living rooms and ceremonial rooms,having doors (色0 that are usually removed during most of the year.The rooms on the second floor are different.Except on the western side,there are seldom any partitions,the space used for the three rooms be- (A 2 low merging into one big room on each side.The middle room in the west wing is the room where the ancestral shrine and other shrines are located.Here the family makes its daily offering of incense and one or two dishes of simple food as well as some of its larger periodic sacrifices.For the occasion of theth of the 7th Moon,when the most important homage is paid to ancestors,the 色2 ancestral shrines are taken down to the room immediately below their usual abode,and there the rituals take place,Room C con- tains two hand looms,on which some of the females of the fam- ily work.Room D is used as a bedroom in emergencies.The big rooms R are left unoccupied.When needed they will be used as store rooms,just as Room C is used at present. In each courtyard of the Y house the plan of the house is vir- tually a reproduction of that of the C house,except,of course, that the middle row of rooms connecting the two courtyards opens onto both.In this house none of the rooms on the second foedfobedroomidesartitiond The middle portion on the second floor of Row F is the place for ancestral and other shrines,where all sacrifices and offerings take place.At one end of this large room are two looms,which women of the house operate.The rooms on the second floor of the other sides of the two courtyards are all empty or contain a few articles which the family rarely uses.Empty,also,are all the rooms in Ground Floor courtyard R,except Row S. The smaller Ch house consists of rooms along two sides of the Y HOUSE cour;those along the third side are yet to be built.The uses of
◆ 36 WORLDLY,OTHER-WORLDLY RESIDENCES the various rooms are similar to those in the other two examples given,except that the second floor portion of the western row of (A) the house is partitioned into two rooms,as indicated.The smaller room is a bedroom for two men.Just outside that room,above the staircase,are the shrines. Some interesting observations may be made on these houses, which apparently represent a very high percentage of all the houses in West Town proper.First,all these houses are too large for the families which built them.Not only single rooms are left empty but also whole rows of rooms remain unused.Second,most of the rooms on the ground floor(they are the most used)are too dark because of the broad covered corridors extending in front of them.The courtyard itself,with houses on four sides,gives very little opportunity for the sun to shine in.Third,the rooms on the ground floor,except when they are located in the middle Ground Floor row of a two-courtyard house,are often badly ventilated and damp whendoorsre cosdwhile the the secondo though well ventilated,offer little protection against the ele- ments.The tiles are often so badly put together that during the rainy season (from about May to September),occupants of sec- ond-floor rooms find it difficult to keep themselves dry. In sharp contrast to such obvious neglect of the comforts of living are the painstaking effort and thought expended on the appearance of these houses.We have just mentioned the elabo- rate woodwork,masonry,and the plaques on the portals of the family homes.Nor is effort spared in connection with the white- washed walls which enclose the entire house.The walls are as a rule only about two feet lower than the ridge of the house.Near the top of each high wall,on the outside,are small square,rectan- gular,or circular spaces,bordered by inset tiles.In each space is written a classical poem or a well-known saying,or else in each space is a painting in color,according to the traditional style: Second Floor flowers,trees,birds,or landscapes.Often the poems and the say- CH HOUSE ings are inaccurately copied,so that mistakes abound.The upper margins on the inside of the walls are also similarly decorated.In