CHINESE PUZZLEDOM* 



CHARLES KLIE^E, F.K.G .S. 



The Orient is the home of problems, puzzles and things 

 inscrutable; and China affords a field of sufficient vastness, 

 with crops of the inscrutable in sufficient variety, to satisfy 

 anyone afflicted with a fondness for this kind of fare. The 

 Chinese people have revelled in the obscure and the recondite 

 from time out of memory, and so conspicuous are the 

 qualities they have attained that one is almost tempted to 

 believe they have developed special talents for mystifying 

 the unsophisticated. The Chinese juggler and the Chinese 

 puzzle are proverbial. Bret Harte has told us that the 

 "Heathen Chinee" is peculiar for ways that are dark and 

 for tricks that are vain; but apart from all that, it does seem 

 that the more one delves into things Chinese, the less one 

 knows ; for the more we learn, the more riddles we en- 

 counter, and they have a provoking way of upsetting our 

 preconceived ideas and pet theories and of showing up our 

 ignorance. 



Let us ask ourselves, for instance, the reason why we 

 call this country "China" and the people "Chinese." The 

 Chinese do not know their country nor themselves by any 

 such names, and it is a mystery to them why foreigners 

 should so designate them. Theirs is the "Middle Flowery 

 Land," and the people who belong to it, in the south, call 

 themselves the "Men of T'ang," and in the north, the 

 "Sons of Han." What has "China" or "Chinese" to do 

 with that? We have assumed that the biblical mention of 

 "those of the land of Sinim" refers to the Chinese, and we 

 talk glibly about the name having been derived from the 

 Tsin dynasty and the "First Emperor," destroyer of books 

 and builder of the Great Wall. But there is nothing in 

 Chinese history or literature to show that this country was 

 ever called the land of Tsin; and, I submit, we cannot 

 satisfactorily explain to the Chinese the reason we call their 



'Read before the Society, January 17th, 1918. 



