the kitchen, in which there is usually no chimney. The filthiness of the houses is caused by the pigs and fowl that can enter at any time. It is still worse for those families who are poor. In such families, one room has to serve as kitchen, living-room, and bedroom for the whole family
if
you can even call it a room. Children, pigs, and fowl fight for their living space. Nevertheless, these people are more satisfied with their living condition, so long as they have enough rice to eat, than many others who live in a palace, and have the best of foods available at all times.
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The household gear of the Chinese who belong to the poorer classes or even to the middle classes is extremely modest. My teacher, for example, who belongs to the literati, has, in his room, first of all a bed, or rather a bed place consisting of some boards which rest on a wooden stand, with a mat on top of the boards. The pillow is made out of bamboo. The bed is covered around by a mosquito net. Apart from the bed he has a small table, one or two bamboo chairs without backs, a small box, and a few earthenware dishes for cooking. His lamp is a small earthen bowl into which oil is poured, with a thin wick which hangs over the side of the bowl and which is fed by that oil. The rest of our helpers own gear of similar quality. In general, this is the case with all the people who I have had the opportunity of getting into contact with. If they have a bed to sleep on and a table to eat at, some benches or stools to sit on, and crockery to cook with and to eat out of, all their needs in regard to household gear are satisfied. They have no luxury articles. Financial circumstances force these people to this simplicity, one can even say, poverty, in the design of their houses and in the way their houses are arranged and furnished.
Of course, with rich Chinese, it is different in both ways. Their houses are larger and roomier, with a separate barn like a European farm. Their household gear is plentiful and richer. While I have already met rich Chinese, I have had little opportunity to see their houses,
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