Explore "Chinese Sketches" by Herbert A. Giles on Textopian. Read with annotations and highlights.
China New Year! -- What a suggestive ring have those three words for "the foreigner in far Cathay. "[*] What visions do they conjure up of ill-served tiffins, of wages forestalled, of petty thefts and perhaps a burglary; what thoughts of horrid tom-toms and ruthless fire-crackers, making day hideous as well as night; what apparitions of gaudily-dressed butlers and smug-faced coolies, their rear brought up by man's natural enemy in China -- the cook, for once in his life clean, and holding in approved Confucian style[+] some poisonous indigestible present he calls a cake!
[*] The title of Mr Medhurst's work.