Source of this article: Historical Porter
In the summer of 1900, the Eight-Power Alliance invaded the city of Beijing.
They then found themselves in the middle of a huge open-air toilet.
One
The famous opera artist Qi Rushan lived in this huge open-air toilet for many years. According to what he saw, at the end of the Qing Dynasty:
"Inside The City of Beiping,...... The yong roads of each street are all high and people, the short ones are also three or four feet high, and the sidewalks on both sides are also very wide, but except for the small merchant stalls, the rest are places where people defecate, and the streets are full of feces and urine. When it rains, it's all puddles. ”
At the end of the Qing Dynasty, Xia Renhu, who was a lang in the Ministry of Posts and Communications, also said in the "Old Beijing Trivia":
"Although there is a royal history as a street hall, and the Ministry of Works as a ditch, it is only a document. Pedestrians drown in the road, and occasionally the wind is strong, and it is often punished, but the decadence is irreparable. ”
Sai Jinhua, a famous prostitute, had similar memories in an oral interview with Liu Bannong:
"The streets of Beijing, at that time, were too pickled, full of feces and urine and no one to take care of it. The foreigners were most tired of this, so they issued an order, telling the residents to clean a section in front of the door, if there is a little filth, find out that it is first beaten and then punished, their method, although it is too powerful, but the streets of Beijing are much cleaner. Later, when Empress Xi returned to Luang and arrived in Beijing, she saw that the streets were neater and cleaner than before, and she liked them very much and praised the foreigners for their ability. ”
Whether Cixi "praised the foreigners for their ability" is unknown. The Eight-Power Coalition deeply resented the open-air toilet in Beijing, but it was the truth.
When the coalition army entered Beijing, a scholar named "Zhongfang" (this is the character of this person, whose surname and name are not available) lived in the "Cong Gui Mountain House" in the second lane of The South Chunshu in Xuanwu City. Zhongfang left a diary of how many coalition forces forced Beijing citizens to change their habits of defecation. For example, the ninth day of the first month of August in the twenty-sixth year of Guangxu (1900):
"Germany shows an annunciation in tongqu, which contains four articles of the constitution, which are outlined: Grain within the boundaries of Germany is forbidden to be sold outside the border; one lane and street are ordered to be flattened and cleaned up; one is that no matter the shopkeepers, every day at seven o'clock in front of the door, a lamp is hung at seven o'clock until eleven o'clock; and every street and alley is not allowed to be congratulatory, and the offender is re-handled."
The coalition forces were not allowed to defecate on the ground, which caused a serious "impact" on the daily lives of Beijing citizens. On September 17, 26, Guangxu, Zhongfang's Notes:
"Recently, foreigners from all walks of life have not allowed people to go out of the streets and alleys to pour out clean buckets. Within the boundaries of south of the street, public toilets are set up at all alleys for convenience, and fecal removal companies are set up to donate money from house to house. No one in the German community advocated it, and the family suffered a lot. Men go out, or borrow empty rooms, or miles away, or take advantage of the gap in the middle of the night, and quickly sweep it clean. Female relatives are dirty and dirty in the room, there is nothing to do, the so-called proverb 'the living are drowned to death' also. ”
Many people who could not hold back and continued to defecate on the ground were severely punished by the coalition forces. On November 16, Zhongfang's Memoirs:
"Although it is forbidden to go out of the street in the boundaries of various countries, it is still convenient to build a latrine. No one in the German world advocated this move, and anyone who went out of the world or went to another realm, or at home. Occasionally, when they go out on the street, once they are bumped into by foreigners, they are beaten in every way, and the number of people who have been humiliated by this in recent days is uncountable. ”
Coalition forces are not just focused on open defecation. The phenomenon of piling up garbage everywhere in beijing is also deeply resented. On December 18, Zhongfang's Chronicle:
"But when the wind blows, the dust and sand blow all over the door, and it must be swept away at all times, otherwise if it is inspected by foreigners, it will be threatened." And the furnace is filthy, and it is not allowed to pile up in front of the street, there is nowhere to fall, and the family is stored in the courtyard. All walks of life in britain and the United States have donated earthen vehicles and shipped them door to door. However, no one in the German community has advocated this move, and it seems that there is no ear for it. ”
In the spring and summer of the following year, the coalition forces withdrew from Beijing one after another. Beijing citizens are once again given the freedom to defecate on the ground and pile up garbage everywhere. Zhongfang was deeply pleased, and in the 14th diary of May of the twenty-seventh year of Guangxu (1901):
"The various sections of the ground inside and outside the city, that is, the return of the infantry commander Yamen Five Cities Patrol, have been quiet in recent days, and there are not many cases of robbery. ...... Sweeping streets and alleys, splashing water, lighting lamps, pouring soil, going out of the way, walking at night, and other things are slack for the time being, and they are not very strictly investigated and held accountable. In the end, our soldiers are in the same breath and pity each other, and they are no more violent than foreigners. ”
When the foreigners left, the men, women and children of the capital were greatly relieved and once again lived a good life of defecation on the ground.
Two
The city of Beijing is not an isolated case.
In Shanghai, what Zheng Guanying saw in the 1890s was:
"The streets of the Shanghai concession are wide, smooth and clean, but once they enter the Chinese boundaries, they are filthy, and even the old and young can defecate everywhere."
In Yingkou, Liaoning Province, the Russians forced Chinese citizens to clean up the loose stool, which sparked fierce conflicts. The Ta Kung Pao published an article in 1902 to fight for the people:
"The Russian soldiers who checked the streets and removed the filth, whenever they saw the dung drowning left in the middle of the road and under the walls, they refused to use shovels to remove them, and they forced the merchants near the left to move away with their hands. ...... For the sake of his office, he has deeply resolved many grievances. Later, when someone was sent to hold feces in their hands, they were immediately held up by the Chinese people, and the faces of the Russian soldiers were thrown, and they fled away. The Russians regard the Chinese people as inferior to the slaves. ”
Things are divided into big sections and subsections. The author's hatred of the Russian soldiers far exceeds the disgust of the Chinese people for defecating on the ground.
At Shanhaiguan, according to the Ta Kung Pao, since 1905, when open defecation was prohibited, the people were deeply inconvenienced and complained deeply:
"People use words to say that it is inconvenient. In each alley, there are residents, far from the toilet, neither can they defecate at will, and there is no official toilet near the left..."
In Tianjin, Wang Xitong's perception in 1898 was:
"The filth of the roads and the narrowness of the streets are extraordinary. Residents on both sides of the river drowned, and the extract could not be opened. ”
Three
Hurd, a Briton who was then the General Taxation Department of China's Customs, said that in the city of Beijing in 1900, he had seen "people from another country shoot anyone who defecated in public in order to promote their clean creed."
Chu Renxun, a culture man of the late Qing Dynasty, also said that in the city of Tianjin in 1900, he witnessed a foreign soldier threatening a teenager with a bayonet and asking him to hold the stool to a designated place with his hands. That was just produced by the teenager himself.
All of this is about the first time in modern China that open defecation in cities has been banned.
After the return of Empress Dowager Cixi of the "Western Hunt", the municipal construction left by the foreigners to the city of Beijing, such as the patrol system for maintaining law and order, the street lamp system funded and maintained by residents on both sides of the road, and the road sweeping system, were inherited.
Only public toilets have been forgotten. Until 1911, the vast city of Beijing still had only 3 official public toilets and 5 private public toilets. Of course, the reason is also very simple, whether it is patrolling, street lamps, or sweeping, they are all new personnel institutions, and they can collect money from the people. Public toilets, however, are purely financial expenditures.
The situation in Tianjin is also largely similar. Although Yuan Shikai, who is responsible for receiving, has kept some toilets, they are not public toilets, and if you want to use them, you will charge five yuan for poop and two yuan for urination.
So, everything went back to the old track. In 1902, the Ta Kung Pao reported on Tianjin after the departure of the coalition forces: "When the foreign officials were managers, the streets were extremely clean, and the excrement was drowned in the carving, and the old view was restored. In 1904, the Ta Kung Pao also said: "Pedestrians (in Tianjin City) let people pee on the street, and no one is forbidden." ”
The situation in beijing is not much better. In 1902, there was an article in the "Enlightenment Pictorial", entitled "The Street of Heaven", which wrote:
"In front of the Qing Gate, the white stone railing, surrounded by squares, is in the middle of the royal road, like a chessboard, so it is called chessboard street. ...... The grass is full of grass, through the fence to enter and exit, no one is forbidden. The west entrance of the east crossing lane of the fence belongs to the embassy boundary, and the size is very inconvenient, so the stone fence is even dirtier than before. The boundary of the stone fence is divided into China and the outside, and there is a road construction to sprinkle dust and prohibit cars and horses; this side is desolate and filthy, and it is a mess. ”
Citizens did not dare to go to the foreign embassy district in Dongjiaomin Lane to excrete. As a result, along the royal road from the Imperial Palace Gate to the Zhengyang Gate, it became a free open-air public toilet.
