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A Bit of Old China (World Cultural Heritage Library)
A Bit of Old China - World Cultural Heritage Library Author:Charles Warren Stoddard From the Book : — " — "It is but a step from Confucius to confusion," said I, in a brief — discussion of the Chinese question. "Then let us take it by all means," — replied the artist, who had been an indulgent listener for at least ten — minutes. — We were strolling upon the verge of the Chinese Quarter in San — Francisco, and, turning aside from one ... more »of the chief thoroughfares of the
city, we plunged into the busiest portion of Chinatown. From our
standpoint - the corner of Kearny and Sacramento Streets - we got the
most favorable view of our Mongolian neighbors. Here is a goodly number
of merchant gentlemen of wealth and station, comfortably, if not
elegantly, housed on two sides of a street that climbs a low hill quite
in the manner of a tea-box landscape.
A few of these gentlemen lodge on the upper floors of their business
houses, with Chinese wives, and quaint, old-fashioned children gaudily
dressed, looking like little idols, chatting glibly with one another,
and gracefully gesticulating with hands of exquisite slenderness.
Confucius, in his infancy, may have been like one of the least of these.
There are white draymen and porters in the employ of these shrewd and
civil merchants, and the outward appearance of traffic, as conducted in
the immediate vicinity, is rather American than otherwise.