Store of Rich Chinese Tea Merchant

Store of Rich Chinese Tea Merchant

Categories
Special Collections > Keystone Slides
Type
tiff scanned file from original glass slide
Description
Chinese stores are not much like the stores or shops in American cities. This is a tea store in the city of Chefoo. Chefoo is on the peninsula (pn-n´ s-lå) that extends into the Yellow Sea, south of Port Arthur. It is almost directly west of Seoul (s-l´) across the Yellow Sea. One of the first things a Chinese notices about an American store is the glass windows. In these windows are goods arranged to make people go inside the store and buy. There is nothing like this in China. The little light that gets inside the Chinese store gets in at the door or through the paper that is pasted on the walls of lath. You will observe also the heavy woodwork on the front of the store. It is hand carved and painted in colors such as we see on our big signboards. In fact the whole front of the Chinese shop is a sign. The painting you see on this store announces the goods that are kept. But the Chinese signs run up and down. If you were to go inside this great tea store, you would find counters just as in our stores. All kinds and grades of teas are for sale here. This merchant has teas so valuable that he rarely sells them to foreigners. They are all bought by the rich Chinese. The clerks wear their caps in Chinese stores. The view shows well the Chinese cue or "pigtail." Most Chinese men still wear cues. There was a time when they cut their hair as American men do. Then an Emperor from another province came in. His people wore cues. He ordered all Chinese to do the same. They refused. Then he ordered all criminals to have their hair cut. Short hair soon came to be the badge of a wrong doer, so the Chinese began the custom of wearing their hair braided. Keystone ID: 14517 Note: All titles, descriptions, and location coordinates are from the original Keystone Slide documentation as supplied by the Keystone View Company. No text has been edited or changed.
Rights
Copyright by the Keystone View Company. The original slides are housed in McConnell Library's Special Collections.