Page:Through China with a camera.pdf/57

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as to the kind of food they eat, but they are cleanly in their modes of preparing it, and we might well learn some valuable lessons from them in this branch of domestic economy ; thus they are skilled in making palatable and nutritious dishes out of odds and ends, and are far less wasteful and extravagant in the use of their food than we are. A number of the best European vegetables are sold in the Hongkong market; beef, mutton, fowls, eggs, fish and game are also to be procured at prices which seldom exceed what we pay for the same com- modities at home. Besides, there are about fifty different kinds of fruit, nearly half of them indigenous and peculiar to China.

Following the main thoroughfare, one notes the display of sign-boards, each one glowing in bold Roman letters with the style and title of some Chinese artist, such as " Chin-Sing, por- trait painter", '*Afong", "Ating" and many others, which make up the list of the painters and photographers of Hongkong. Some of the specimens of photographic art displayed in door- ways are fairly good, while others are the most hideous carica- tures of the human face that it is possible for the camera to produce. A Chinaman will not suffer himself to be posed so as to produce a profile or three-quarter face, his reason being that the portrait must show him to possess two eyes and two ears and that his round face is perfect as a full moon. The same observance of symmetry is carried out in the entire pose of the figure ; the face too must be as nearly as possible devoid of shadow, or if there be any shadow at all, it must be equal on both sides. Shadow they say should not exist, it is an accident of nature and therefore should not be portrayed, as it does not represent any feature of the face; and yet they all of them carry fans in order to secure that very shade so essen- tial to existence in the s6uth of China. They fail to recognise