The Hunghuz

Everyone who is in any way interested in the history of China knows the concept of hunhuz! Many people, when they hear this word, imagine a bloodthirsty robber, a cruel looter, a thief, a treacherous deceiver, a beast-man, alien to any notion of honor. In our country there was no social phenomenon resembling Chinese “hunhuzing,” so there is no corresponding word that could express this phenomenon more or less accurately. That is why it’s not only interesting but even necessary to get to know, as thoroughly as possible, what “hunhuzing” really is: just robber, looter, thief—or something else? A detailed study of a phenomenon like “hunhuzing” awaits you in ethnographic accounts by the well-known sinologist and orientalist Pavel Vasilievich Shkurkin.

The stories offered here are not belles-lettres: their form is rough, and the presentation doesn’t meet the basic requirements of fine literary style. But every one of them is taken from life; the cases recounted in them are compiled from real events as accurately as possible, with almost photographic precision.

Contents:
Payment
Old bread-and-salt
Earrings
How I Became a Hunhuz
Guests of the Hunhuz
Reward
A Manchurian little prince