am saying at this moment?" "No," he replies, "I do not understand you!"
Another stage in the experience of Chinese powers of misunderstanding is reached when, although the words are distinctly enough apprehended, through a disregard of details the thought is obscured even if not wholly lost. The "Foreigner in Far Cathay" needs to lay in a copious stock of phrases which shall mean, "on this condition," "conditionally," "with this understanding," etc., etc. It is true that there do not appear to be any such phrases, nor any occasion for them felt by the Chinese, but with the foreigner it is different. The same is true in regard to the notation of tenses. The Chinese do not care for them, but the foreigner is compelled to care for them.
Of all subjects of human interest in China, the one which most needs to be guarded against misunderstanding is money. If the foreigner is paying out this commodity (which often appears to be the principal function of the foreigner as seen from the Chinese standpoint) a future-perfect tense is "a military necessity." "When you shall have done your work, you will receive your money." But there is no future-perfect tense in Chinese, or tense of any description. A Chinese simply says, "Do work, get money," the last being the principal idea which dwells in his mind, the "time relation" being absent. Hence when he is to do anything for a foreigner he wishes his money at once, in order that he may "eat," the presumption being that if he had not stumbled on the job of this foreigner he would never have eaten any more! Eternal vigilance, we must repeat, is the price at which immunity from misunderstandings about money is to be purchased in China. Who is and who is not to receive it, at what times, in what amounts, whether in silver ingots or brass cash, what quality and weight of the former, what number of the latter shall pass as a "string"—these and other like points are those in regard to
