Kirk Munroe - The Blue Dragon - A Tale of Recent Adventure in China

The Blue Dragon, chosen as a title for this story, is the national emblem of China, adopted as such by a desire to flatter and propitiate that spirit of evil considered to be the most powerful. As the dragon is believed to be big enough and strong enough to overcome and devour all the other wicked genii who continually vex Chinese life, the wise men of the "Black-haired People" thought it best to have him on their side, and consequently accorded him the highest honor in their power to bestow. As we of America chose the eagle, strongest of visible air spirits, for our national emblem, so the Chinese chose the most powerful of invisible spirits in whose existence they believe as firmly as we do in the existence of things that we can see, hear, or feel.

In the story thus entitled, I have endeavored to give an idea of what China has been, is, and may become through education and development, how she is regarded, and how her people are being treated by other nations, and what causes she has for resentment against those who are taking advantage of her feebleness to despoil her.

While travelling in China, and trying to gain the Chinese point of view, I met so many charming people, so many men of intelligence and liberal education, honorable, broad-minded, and devoted to the uplifting of their unhappy country, that I became exceedingly interested in their cause, and anxious to aid it. With this object in view I am striving, through the medium of a story, to present it to those young Americans who, in the near future, will be called upon to decide the ultimate fate of the great Middle Kingdom. With them, more than with any other people, even including the Chinese themselves, will rest the decision, whether China shall remain a nation, open to the unobstructed commerce of the world, or become a series of petty colonial possessions devoted only to the interests of their several ruling powers. That my young readers may be guided to a wise and just solution of this great problem, is the sincere hope of their friend,

"Chinee! Chinee! Chink! Chink! Chink!"

These epithets, and many others equally contemptuous, such as "Rat Eater!" and "Piggy Tail!" were gleefully shouted by a mob of young ragamuffins who crowded about a single youthful figure, early one summer morning, on the elm-shaded main street of Hatton. The lad thus hustled and insulted was a good-looking chap according to the standard of his own people; though his long-lashed, wide-set eyes were narrower than those of his tormentors, his clear complexion held a tint of yellow, the front half of his head was shaved, and the remaining luxuriant growth of jet-black hair, such as all Chinese have, and of which they are so proud that they call themselves "the black-haired people," hung in a thick, glossy braid down his back. He wore a blue gown that fastened closely about his neck and fell in severely simple lines, without belt or ornamentation, almost to his feet. Below it could be seen a pair of black silk trousers, tightly fastened over a narrow section of white stockings, that in turn were lost to view in black cloth shoes having embroidered tops and felt soles. He had worn a round, visorless cap of black silk, surmounted by a crimson knot, but this had been knocked off, and now was being ruthlessly kicked and trampled underfoot by the hoodlums who, having discovered a victim that could be abused with impunity, were making the most of the welcome chance. Nor were they without encouragement in their cruel sport; for a group of men and young women, on their way to the great factory that was at once the mainstay of Hatton's prosperity and an ever-threatening menace, had paused to enjoy the sight of a crowd of American boys tormenting a helpless foreigner, and greeted the sorry spectacle with shouts of laughter.

"That's right, kiddies!" cried one of the men. "Down with the yellowbelly, and teach him that this country ain't no place fer him nor his kind."

"Dirty, rat-eating scab!" growled another.

"Somehow, it don't seem right, though," said one of the young women, with a tone of pity in her voice, as the badgered lad was suddenly jerked backward and nearly thrown to the ground by a violent pull at his queue. "He does look so like a girl, with his blue dress, his little hands, and his braided hair."

"Oh, hush up, Mag! You're too soft for anything!" exclaimed another. "He ain't nothing but just a low-lived heathen Chinee, like them as runs the laundry over to Adams. They'd take the bread out of honest working-people's mouths quick as wink, if they was give half a chance."

Just then the factory bell rang with insistent clamor, and the jeering group of workers moved on. At a meeting held a few evenings before they had loudly cheered and unanimously passed a resolution to the effect that the government ought immediately to deport to their own country, at their own expense, all Chinese found within its territory. One of the speakers had declared that, if the government was slow in doing this thing, it was the duty of every American citizen to take the matter into his own hands, drive out the Chinese wherever found, destroy their places of business, and hunt them to the death if they offered resistance. Of course, the children of those men, having heard this resolution discussed, and its accompanying speeches repeated with applauding comments, deemed it their privilege to attack, and, if possible, drive from their virtuous village every representative of the hated race they might encounter; and, unfortunately for him, poor, innocent, helpless Chinese Jo was the first to fall into their joyful clutches.

This was the first experience of his first day in Hatton, which he had reached after dark the evening before. He had come to America, from his far-away native land, in company with a dozen others of his young countrymen. These others had been sent over by the Chinese government to be educated and taught the ways of Western civilization; and Jo's father, Li Ching Cheng, a progressive mandarin, who realized the value of such an education, had seized the opportunity to add his one dear son to the party, that he might gain the priceless advantage of some years of study in the same land.

Now it happened that in Mandarin Li's district labored an American medical missionary, Mason Hinckley by name, who also had an only son. When this boy was four years old, his parents, desirous that he should have an American training from the outset, had taken him to the United States and placed him in charge of his uncle and aunt, the Rev. William and Mrs. Hinckley, of Hatton, a manufacturing village of the lovely Connecticut valley. Then, with aching hearts, they had returned to their lonely post of duty in China, and only twice during the following fourteen years were they able to visit their boy.

When Mandarin Li announced that he, too, proposed to send a son to America, and asked if the Hinckleys could not arrange to have him received into the same family with their Rob, they gladly consented to do what they could. Their hope for their own boy was that he would eventually return to China, and they realized the value to him of a present companionship with a young Chinese of education and refinement. So a letter was sent to Hatton, and finally everything was arranged for the comfort and happiness of Mandarin Li's son. Thus he was sent forth on his long journey, half-way around the world, filled with a joyous enthusiasm over his prospects.

He and his young friends travelled in charge of a home-returning American, who had promised to see them safely to their several destinations in New England. By his advice they adopted English names for use in the country to which they were bound, and our lad chose that of Joseph. As his father's surname was Li, which, in Chinese, is pronounced "Lee," he thus became known to his future teachers and more precise acquaintances as Joseph Lee; but all his American boy friends called him "Chinese Jo," or "China Jo," or "Chinee Jo," according to their several degrees of intelligence, and it is thus that we shall know him as we accompany him through the various adventures which it is proposed to record in the following pages.