British Secretary's Wife's Ricksha

The British Secretary’s Wife’s Ricksha
Lockhart, R.H. Bruce, “Return to Malaya,” G.P. Putnam & Sons, 1936


This sounds almost too funny to be true.  I just imagine her reaction when she learned the truth.... 
Bill B.  www.amoymagic.com

At that time the brightest star in the diplomatic firmament of the Chinese capital was the wife of a British secretary. She was a daughter of an ancient and aristocratic family, and a beautiful and high-spirited woman whose independence of action was sometimes a little trying to a Minister who had risen to his exalted position from the ranks of the Consular Service.

Above all she was artistic, with a passionate interest in the treasures of Chinese art. It was her artistic sense that led her astray. One day she returned to her house in raptures over a new purchase. It took the form of a beautifully lacquered ricksha. It had a Chinese "puller" with the torso of a Greek athlete. But its chief glory was two lanterns, borne by two picturesquely-dressed bearers and decorated on the one side with an idyllic moonlit scene featuring a pagoda, a bridge, a river and a garden, and on the other side with exquisitely painted Chinese symbols* This brilliant turn-out was not bought as a museum-piece. It was intended to add lustre to the glories of British diplomacy, and in order to give greater effect to the lanterns and the lantern-bearers it was used mostly at night. And the arrival of its owner reclining gracefully on a background of red lacquer and preceded by her lantern-bearers was, indeed, an impressive sight well calculated to drive the iron of envy into the heart of every other diplomat's wife in Peking.

The last person to see it was the British Minister, a sound Chinese scholar, who encountered it one evening as he was entering the compound of the French Legation. The next morning he sent for his Oriental Secretary, then Mr. Barton and now Sir Sydney Barton, who was British Minister to Abyssinia during the recent Italo-Abyssinian war. "Barton," said the Minister, "have you seen Lady X's rickisha?" The Oriental Secretary nodded. The Minister hesitated, debating the difficulties of an intervention which should properly have been undertaken by himself. "Well," he continued, "I think you'd better go and see her and explain things."

Soon the Oriental Secretary was facing his colleague's wife fortified behind a tea-table.

"I'm sorry," he said, "but His Excellency thinks that you ought to give up using your rickisha."

The secretary's wife sat up. She foresaw a social battle, and was at her most formidable best in such encounters.

"I do not see what my rickisha has to do with the Minister. Surely I can use any kind of vehicle I like?"

"Yes, I agree," said the Oriental Secretary with diplomatic suavity, "but it's not a question of a rickisha or a carriage, but of the kind of rickisha. Yours is not at all suitable for the wife of a diplomatist."

"That again is my business and not the Minister's. As long as I behave myself, I do not see what right he has to dictate to me in a personal matter like this."

"But there's the lettering on those lanterns. Do you know what it means?"

"No, and I don't care. But you can tell me if you wish."

"Well," said the Oriental Secretary, "the lettering on the one lantern means I belong to the First Class Order of Prostitutes,' and on the other 'My Price is Five Yen.' "
Bill Brown, Xiamen University
www.amoymagic.com