PREFACE
These studies were never intended for public consumption, but for personal benefit and enlightenment and it was only at the request of several friends, coupled with the fear of permanent loss owing to the disturbed state of the country, that I was induced to submit them for publication. The object of the studies was to obtain the Chinese view point concerning the many mysterious customs and practices which perplexed me in daily intercourse with this people. In order to attain this end two things have had to be rigorously guarded against—first, an adverse spirit of criticism, which closes up every avenue of information; and second, the danger of being content when only personal curiosity is satisfied instead of trying to see things as the Chinese see them.
It should be stated that no foreign text books have been studied; questions of a scientific, ethnological and comparative nature have been set aside in order to present the local view of the subject in hand. The writer does not claim to have fully attained his end or to have exhausted the information obtainable on any given subject; while variations may be found in almost every county in the province, to say nothing of the whole of China.
The little city of Kwan Hsien, which lies 40 miles to the north-west of Chengtu in the province of Szechuan, is the hub of "The Tibetan Foothills." It was from this centre, so richly endowed with natural beauty, so famous for its ancient yet efficient irrigation system, so crowded with a teeming cosmopolitan population, that these pages were gradually compiled.
The whole of the subject matter contained in this volume has passed through the pages of the "New China Review," under the editorship of Mr. Samuel Couling to whom I owe a great debt of gratitude for editing the MS. and correcting the proofs. If the printing, numbering and colour of paper should not be quite uniform all readers will kindly consider the difficulty under which the Editor has laboured while putting these papers through his magazine.
Chengtu, January, 1921.
