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in the main it is a limited number of English words used more or less according to Chinese idiom, and also mispronounced. The fewest possible number of English words is used.35 The widespread use of this lingua franca prevented Chinese and Europeans from even remotely grasping the subtleties of each other's culture.
The amount of social contact, outside work and the market place, between Europeans and Chinese must not be exaggerated, for both groups enjoyed a healthy contempt for, and misunderstanding of, the other. W.A.P. Martin, at that time a Presbyterian missionary, relates that when he stepped ashore at Canton in 1850 he was greeted by a hooting mob 'who shouted Fanqui, fanqui! Shato, shato! ("Foreign devils! cut off their heads.")'36 L.C. Arlington, of the Chinese Maritime Customs, claims that, even in 1891, when a foreigner passed in his chair from Shameen (the foreign concession quarter in Canton) through the native city the coolies would shout out 'Take him to the execution ground'. No foreigner, he continues, be he white, Indian or Japanese, could escape the contemptuous term ‘foreign devil'. 'It was shouted at you from the tops of houses, from alleyways, and from courtyards.'37
Despite the language barrier, a working class European did not find it too difficult to establish a liaison with a Chinese woman. In the early days, such women were found usually among the Tanka boat population, a pariah group that populated the fringes of the Pearl River delta region. A few of these women achieved the status of 'protected' woman (a kept mistress) and were, sometimes, well provided for by their paramour, such as a ship's captain. In time, a considerable number of police, overseers, tidewaiters and others, entered into alliances, even marriages, with local women, since, of course, there was always a scarcity of marriageable young European women in Hong Kong.* But mixed marriages were condemned by Taipans; the partners were ostracised by polite European society since a mixed marriage clearly stigmatised a European as an outcaste. Such racial attitudes became more rigid toward the end of the century.
Although some Europeans lived with or even married Chinese women, it does not follow that such social arrangements provided
See Carl T. Smith's interesting article on one of these Tanka Women in Chung Chi Bulletin, No. 46, June 1969, 13-17 and 27.
EUROPEAN WORKING CLASS IN 19TH CENTURY
109
in the main it is a limited number of English words used more or less according to Chinese idiom, and also mispronounced. The fewest possible number of English words is used',35 The widespread use of this lingua franca prevented Chinese and Europeans from even remotely grasping the subtleties of each other's culture.
The amount of social contact, outside work and the market place, between Europeans and Chinese must not be exaggerated, for both groups enjoyed a healthy contempt for, and misunderstan- ding of, the other. W.A.P. Martin, at that time a Presbyterian mis- sionary, relates that when he stepped ashore at Canton in 1850 he was greeted by a hooting mob 'who shouted Fanqui, fanqui! Shato, shato! ("Foreign devils! cut off their heads.")"',36 L.C. Arlington, of the Chinese Maritime Customs, claims that, even in 1891, when a foreigner passed in his chair from Shameen (the foreign concession quarter in Canton) through the native city the coolies would shout out 'Take him to the execution ground'. No foreigner, he continues, be he white, Indian or Japanese, could escape the contemptuous term ‘foreign devil'. 'It was shouted at you from the tops of houses, from alleyways, and from courtyards."37
Despite the language barrier, a working class European did noi find it too difficult to establish a liaison with a Chinese woman. In the early days, such women were found usually among the Tanka boat population, a pariah group that populated the fringes of the Pearl River delta region. A few of these women achieved the status of 'protected' woman (a kept mistress) and were, sometimes, well provided for by their paramour, such as a ship's captain. In time, a considerable number of police, overseers, tidewaiters and others, entered into alliances, even marriages, with local women, since, of course, there was always a scarcity of marriageable young Euro- pean women in Hong Kong.* But mixed marriages were condem- ned by Taipans; the partners were ostracised by polite European society since a mixed marriage clearly stigmatised a European as an outcaste. Such racial attitudes became more rigid toward the end of the century.
Although some Europeans lived with or even married Chinese women, it does not follow that such social arrangements provided
See Carl T. Smith's interesting article on one of these Tanka Women in Chung Chi Bulletin, No. 46, June 1969, 13-17 and 27.
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