Often there are an incredible number of people living under one roof-tree, as all the sons bring their wives to their father’s home instead of establishing separate households. Sheng, the director of railways, told me that there were 250 people who took rice each day within his compound. The walls of his garden enclosed a small village. There was a large building containing his office and residence. Radiating from this there were rows of smaller houses, where his brothers and married sons lived with their numerous families.
A Chinese house, even of the very rich, is a shabby affair, judged from Western standards. It is always surrounded by a wall, generally painted white. Within the entrance gate is a large wooden screen, placed to insure privacy, and also to guard the doorways from evil spirits, which are known to travel only in straight lines and to abhor corners. If the family is large the home consists of a series of houses built around courtyards. Across the first court are the master’s rooms and offices; then come the houses of the different families, as each wife has a suite of rooms for herself and her children. Some of the wives of the more wealthy Chinese occupy an entire building. The kitchen and the servants’ quarters are at the end of the last courtyard.
The floors of all the rooms are of rough boards, with great cracks between them, sometimes covered with a rug but more often bare. The walls are composed of the same wide boards, with here and there an embroidered hanging or a scroll bearing the words of some honoured sage. The furniture of the reception-room consists of small tables alternating with straight-backed chairs, arranged with mathematical precision around the three sides of the room. Opposite the doorway is the seat of honour, or an opium-couch. Often the furniture is elaborately carved or inlaid with mother-of-pearl, but it looks formal and precise. The chairs, with their red embroidered cushions, are very uncomfortable for the Westerner, because of their straight, low backs and high, narrow seats, that make one long for a footstool. There are no buffets nor sideboards in the dining-rooms, and stools are used in place of chairs. The tables are square, seating eight, and neither tablecloths nor napkins are considered necessary adjuncts to dining.