University of Nanking - Linguist Yearbook (Nanking, China)

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THE L1NoU1s'r 27 Proportions with all the other odors, that ancient mustiness pervading eV0l'y nook of the sleeping Oriental Giant, which can be fully appreciated but cannot be described except by the term Chimes-ey g all this crowded' for il place in my olfactory consciousness. Hx ,.,- --1 ,. Lkx N--. ig, N A Tea House I wondered what Chinese lirst attempted to catalogue all the diverse Slllells of his land. Evidently seine sort of classification exists, I reasoned, for it would seein the Chinese evince such a desire to learn of any hitherto Unknown odors that they have adopted as the name for newspapers, new-sinells-paper. A group of laborers, with huge claw-like hoes, were Striving to uncover the drain which lay to 0110 Side like the curb skirting all American street. The drain itself consisted of nothing more or logs than a scooped-out ditch live or six inches deep covered by long Hat stones Placed end to end. Perhaps this gutter was meant to carry drainage to a Canal farther down the street, or it might have been the purpose for it to 310110 toward the pond a quarter lnile back, but from U10 tendency of water to Seek the lowest level it seemed evident to 1110 that it would stand stagnant right where it had been poured into the ditch. When the Qooligs finally pried loose a stone, I concluded that the foul filth and muck eXposeclco11taineda complex of smells with enough potency to arouse coin- lllent on the needs of China in most ally 5'lieu'-Sm0HS'll3llC1' for a month. fC'onc'luclczZ on page I-301

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26 ODORS barber-chairs, and the lone, cracked mirror with a feather duster. Wher- ever the dust was disturbed and scattered into the air, a thick layer of soot had taken its place, but still I felt bound to admire the effort at tidincss. This shop was progressive, for although the proprietors appeared dried up and stupefied, had they not bought a stove and thirty-five feet of pipe and several wheel-barrow loads of faggots? Yes, moneyed foreigners who in the winter heated vast empty spaces instead of conserving their own warmth with padded garments were not to be inconvenienced in this shop. I dried the fieshet of tears on my face just as we boys used to do around the wigwam fire when we were Indians waiting for the attacking whites. Walking on, I thought it was because of the associative trend of the subconscious that I was forcibly reminded of a bam filled with domestic animals. Hard by the barber-shop was the forerunner of a Chinese garage. The air reekcd with the smell of hay and of horses, and the evidences of both littered the livery stable floor and overfiowed into the narrow street. Inside the broad doorway were two antiquated coaches, one open and with a movable top like a nineteenth century presidential carriage, and the other majestically encased with glass. Heavily curtaining this one, light brown sackeloth, the symbol of mourning in China as in Palestine, had been hung. About the carriage, three small boys, one of them the boss, plied cloths in an effort to clean the wood and polish the metal so that distant relatives who rode in the funeral procession that day might not be distracted from their mourning by the penetrating odor of the stable. I entered the district of small eating-houses and of stands where customers chose and picked up what they wanted as Americans do in cafeterias. The aroma of brown dressing like Worchester sauce, which to the Chinese makes everything taste good, the steam of broiling white fish, yellow fish and black fish, ocean fish and river fish, sardine-sized and salmon.like fish, shark's fins and cooked-to-pieces fish, the faint fragrance of anise coming distinctly a dozen times but not once traceable to any source, the unmistakable heat-waves filled with 0l1lO11 and garlic used to cover up the flavor of spoiling sausage-balls, the savor of steaming chicken flavored with celery, the suffocating vapor of volatized grease from a kettle of oil where a pcddler fried crabs whole, the sour reeking odor of a. tiny ill-patronized wine shop, the sweet toastiness of little sesame seed cakes- filled with brown sugar and baked over hot charcoal, and mixing in large

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