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Behind the Diplomatic Scenes in Old Peking

ife for a diplomat in Peking from the end of the 19th century to the start of the 20th was extremely trying. In his diaries and private papers, Marquis Giuseppe Salvago Raggi, the Italian Ambassador to China at the turn of the century, relates some of his experiences from the time of his arrival in the Heavenly Empire with his wife Camilla and their five-year-old son, Paris.

After one month aboard ship from Genoa to Shanghai, and three days on a boat from there to Dagu -the only landing place from which to reach Peking by train via Tianjin - "the brilliant diplomat", as Raggi jokingly called himself, found the Legation of Italy totally empty and without furniture. This was because his penny-pinching Ministry back home, in order to avoid the expense of sending a telegram from Rome, had not asked the secretary in Peking to keep the furniture, which had belonged to Ragg's predecessor, who had died there. Raggi had planned to buy the furniture.

Raggi records:"A dusty road flanked by windowless low buildings, that is, outer walls with closed entrances, led us the to the Italian Legation. Once through the entrance door there was dry ground, where a few haphazardly planted, stunted trees were supposed to be a garden, and twelve or fifteen meters from the main gate a low house consisting of just the ground floor with a veranda [was] raised a meter from the ground ...

"I enquired about a hotel; there was nothing to reflect on. The Hotel de Pekin, run by a Swiss, Mr. Chamot, had six or seven rooms already occupied. At the moment a Chinese arrived with two letters. One from Lady MacDonald, wife of the British minister who I did not know. She wrote: 'I do not have the pleasure of knowing you, but we are colleagues and I am therefore writing to you without hesitation to tell you that I know your house is empty. Do you want beds? Tell me quite sincerely.

"Five minutes later, another similar letter arrived from Madame Hey King, wife of the German minister, who I had met in Cairo. Beds could not be purchased in Peking, only Chinese bowls and tables and chairs. That night we slept in beds lent by those two colleagues, and we washed in bowls resting on Chinese chairs."

Life, however, was soon organized in line with other diplomatsÕ families who lived in the Legation Quarter. Papers left by Raggi tell what daily life was like inside a western Legation in Peking just over 100 years ago. He said that in distributing furniture between the various rooms, it was necessary "to battle against our boys" who insisted on positioning the furniture according to the feng-shui of the house. "But this was not always convenient in westerners" opinion.Raggi noted that everything in China was "regulated".

He also commented on the fact that his house always had its facade facingsouth because the city was always facing south and the streets ran from south to north and from east to west. "In this way, a Chinese always knew the direction and did not say 'on my right' or 'on my left' but 'south, north, east, west, center', since the cardinal points in China even today are not four but five with the center, which is perhaps the most important of them all. The name of Sthe country, Zhongguo, has for millennia meant 'Central Country', 'Middle Empire'."In lighter vein, Raggi writes: "Many times, on the point of going out, I was searching for my cigarette case and my boy said: 'You have put it in your pocket to the west'. But let us return to the feng-shui. In the house, every environment possessed feng-shui: the courtyard, garden and the single rooms. We do not know the feng-shui of the various environments because we are Yang Guizi - Western Devils. That is, ignorant.

"A Chinese, however, especially if educated, must know and if necessary ask specialists for enlightenment. The feng-shui of my bedroom demanded, according to my boy, that my bed be in a place where for me it was not convenient, but it was not so easy to have it positioned where I wanted it. I myself helped in the placing of the furniture, and the bed was put where I wanted it. Two hours later, however, I found it as the feng-shui had demanded, but it was not convenient for me. I called the boy, who told me that he had wanted to try out the other position of the bed, certain that when I had seen it I would be convinced that the feng-shui required it so. In the Legation, it was the head boy who decided the organization of the house. "This fundamental personage, wrote Raggi, "took on a governing role on the basis of the trust obtained from the master. He was commonly considered a 'contractor' of the existence of the inhabitants of the dwelling. When you arrive in China, you must pray the Lord to let you meet a good head boy: your happiness can depend on this.It was necessary to accept what Raggi termed the imposition of the squeeze: "The squeeze in this case not of a lemon, but of your finances. The head boy will take so much [for his] expenses. He promises you that it will be a modest percentage. When you decide to put your fate into his hands, he will prepare a house organisation plan for you.

That's how a westerner's household was run in 1900. A foreign charge d'affaires in Peking had to employ, of necessity and in the cause of dignity, at least two personal boys - one defined as the valet de pied, the other valet de chamber. There also had to be at least three coolies (porters), plus a cook and assistant cook. The remaining personnel at the Legation, apart from those providing personal services, depended on the number of diplomats and their families. Usually the comprised a doorman, a ting-chai (page-messenger boy), a head mafu (horseman) and as many mafu as there were horses in the stables.

As head of the Italian Legation, Raggi had 15 domestic servants. That was not many, considering that each one had a special individual role that excluded all other household functions. At that time there was not electricity in Peking. One of the boys, Tom, specialized in the Legation's lamps. Another boy, Liao, was assigned to the stoves. Wrote Raggi: "If a stove smoked, I rang and Tom came. I told him to see about stopping the smoke, and Tom went in search of Liao, calmly leaving the smoke to invade the apartment until he found the competentLiao ..."

Raggi himself admitted that the monthly wages of the boys in service at the Legations were very low, the cook being the highest paid with 20-30 silver dollars a month compared with porters five or six. Employers were under no obligation to feed the staff as well. The advantage for the master of the house was that responsibility for his family's dwelling fell solely on the head boy, who saw to everything without ever consulting him.

Complaints were also handled by the head boy, who reprimanded or dismissed whoever caused problems, and that was the end of the matter. If one of the boys wished to take time off to visit a father or grandmother who was ill in a far-off province, traditional Chinese manners came into play. He would be paid the amount that he had accrued up to that day, and after packing his things and genuflecting, he would go on his way with honor satisfied all round.