The reason why Ku brought his case to my court was not that he objected to this unexpected call upon his slender purse, for as it happened he had already paid the whole amount without a murmur; he merely came to suggest that as the original debtor had two direct living descendants besides himself, those two persons should be required to pay their fair shares of the ancestral debt. He wished to know the views of the court on the point before he demanded payment from them. The man might in law have repudiated this debt altogether: Chinese law does not and could not go as far as local custom in settling questions that directly or indirectly concern the honour of a family. Repudiation of an ancestor's debt is, however, as rare in a Weihaiwei village as is bankruptcy. Debts may go unpaid, but only at the risk of a "loss of face" that would in most cases cause the debtor much greater inconvenience and discomfort than the monetary loss.
Weihaiwei has as yet shown but little tendency to modify its semi-patriarchal social system as a consequence of its fifteen years of continuous contact with Western civilisation. The individual is still sunk in the family. He cannot divest himself of the rights any more than of the responsibilities that belong to him through his family membership. The Weihaiwei farmer has indeed so limited a conception of his own existence as a separate and distinct personality that in ordinary speech he continually confuses himself with his ancestors or with living members of his family. Examples of this are of repeated occurrence in the law-courts. "I bought this land and now the Tung family is trying to steal it from me," complains a petitioner. "When did you buy it?" asks the magistrate. "Two hundred years ago," promptly replies the oppressed one. Says another, "My rights to the property of Sung Lien-têng are being contested by my distant cousin. I am the rightful owner. I buried Sung Lien-têng and have charge of his soul-tablet and carry out the ancestral ceremonies." "When did Sung Lien-têng die?" questions the magistrate. "In the fortieth year of K'ang Hsi" is the reply. This means that the deceased whose property is in dispute died childless in 1701, that plaintiff's ancestor in that year defrayed the funeral expenses and acted as chief mourner, that by family agreement he was installed as adopted son to the deceased and heir to his property, and that plaintiff claims to be the adopted son's descendant and heir. Looking upon his family, dead and alive, as one and indivisible, he could not see any practical difference between the statement that certain funeral rites had been carried out by himself and the statement that they had been carried out by a direct ancestor.