1880] Chinese Fishermen 



In "Chinatown," a little Old World center with "China- 

 all its inbred vices and incidental virtues planted in town> \ 

 the heart of an intensely Western city, Gilbert and 

 I found much of interest. The San Francisco 

 Chinese, moreover, were even greedier fishermen 

 than those of San Diego! Their catch also was 

 mainly salted and dried for export to China ; nothing 

 being too small for such purposes, they were fre- 

 quently before the courts for using nets with too 

 fine a mesh. So I became somewhat expert in their 

 "pidgin English" that is, "business English" 

 by which our language is reduced to the lowest 

 terms possible, still remaining fairly intelligible; 

 and I amused myself by describing their activities 

 in correct "pidgin" verse: 



Mellican man go China side 



Catchee China dishee; 

 China man go Mellican side 



Catchee Mellican fishee. 



Once I asked a Chinese boat steward where the 

 first officer was. The answer, "Him blong chow," 

 expressed in correct and intelligible "pidgin" the 

 fact that the man I wanted was at dinner. 



A large part of our work on the Coast was to A Chinese 

 gather statistics, but it was not easy to extract code 

 the necessary information from a "Chinaman." The 

 truth, he figured, might hurt, while falsehood would 

 probably be harmless! Hence his answers were in- 

 correct, the more so in proportion as "his smile was 

 childlike and bland." But the Chinese have their 

 own code. A dealer, for instance, will always pay his 

 debts on time ; the immemorial custom of his native 

 land takes care of that, for to break a contract 



C 221 ] 



