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+****The Project Gutenberg Etext of The Chinese Boy and Girl****

+#1 in our series by Isaac Taylor Headland

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+The Chinese Boy and Girl

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+by Isaac Taylor Headland

+

+May, 1996  [Etext #522]

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+

+THE CHINESE

+BOY AND GIRL

+

+

+

+BY

+ISAAC TAYLOR HEADLAND

+OF PEKING UNIVERSITY

+

+

+

+Author of Chinese Mother Goose Rhymes

+

+

+

+

+

+PREFACE

+

+

+

+No thorough study of Chinese child life can be made until

+the wall of Chinese exclusiveness is broken down and the

+homes of the East are thrown open to the people of the

+West. Glimpses of that life however, are available, sufficient

+in number and character to give a fairly good idea of

+what it must be. The playground is by no means always

+hidden, least of all when it is the street. The Chinese

+nurse brings her Chinese rhymes, stories and games into

+the foreigner's home for the amusement of its little ones.

+

+Chinese kindergarten methods and appliances have no

+superior in their ingenuity and their ability to interest, as

+well as instruct. In the matter of travelling shows and

+jugglers also, no country is better supplied, and these are

+chiefly for the entertainment of the little ones.

+

+To the careful observer of these different phases it

+becomes apparent that the Chinese child is well supplied

+with methods of exercise and amusement, also that he has

+much in common with the children of other lands. A large

+collection of toys shows many duplicates of those common

+in the West, and from the nursery rhymes of at least two

+out of the eighteen provinces it appears that the Chinese

+nursery is rich in Mother Goose. As a companion to

+the "Chinese Mother Goose," this book seeks to show

+that the same sunlight fills the homes of both East and

+West. If it also leads their far-away mates to look upon

+the Chinese Boy and Girl as real little folk, human like

+themselves, and thus think more kindly of them, its mission

+will have been accomplished.

+

+

+CONTENTS

+                                                

+THE NURSERY AND ITS RHYMES 

+CHILDREN AND CHILD-LIFE

+GAMES PLAYED BY BOYS 

+GAMES PLAYED BY GIRLS

+THE TOYS CHILDREN PLAY WITH

+BLOCK GAMES--KINDERGARTEN

+CHILDREN'S SHOWS AND ENTERTAINMENTS

+JUVENILE JUGGLING

+STORIES TOLD TO CHILDREN

+

+

+THE NURSERY AND ITS RHYMES

+

+It is a mistake to suppose that any one nation or people

+has exclusive right to Mother Goose. She is an omnipresent

+old lady. She is Asiatic as well as European or American.

+Wherever there are mothers, grandmothers, and

+nurses there are Mother Gooses,--or; shall we say, Mother

+Geese--for I am at a loss as to how to pluralize this old

+dame. She is in India, whence I have rhymes from her,

+of which the following is a sample:

+

+ Heh, my baby! Ho, my baby!

+ See the wild, ripe plum,

+ And if you'd like to eat a few,

+ I'll buy my baby some.

+

+She is in Japan. She has taught the children there to put

+their fingers together as we do for "This is the church,

+this is the steeple," when she says:

+

+

+     A bamboo road,

+          With a floor-mat siding,

+     Children are quarrelling,

+          And parents chiding,

+

+the children" being represented by the fingers and the

+"parents" by the thumbs. She is in China. I have more

+than 600 rhymes from her Chinese collection. Let me tell

+you how I got them.

+

+One hot day during my summer vacation, while sitting

+on the veranda of a house among the hills, fifteen miles

+west of Peking, my friend, Mrs. C. H. Fenn, said to me:

+

+"Have you noticed those rhymes, Mr. Headland?"

+

+"What rhymes?" I inquired.

+

+"The rhymes Mrs. Yin is repeating to Henry."

+

+"No, I have not noticed them. Ask her to repeat that one again."

+

+Mrs. Fenn did so, and the old nurse repeated the following rhyme,

+very much in the tone of, "The goblins 'll git you if you don't

+look out."

+

+     He climbed up the candlestick,

+          The little mousey brown,

+     To steal and eat tallow,

+          And he couldn't get down.

+     He called for his grandma,

+          But his grandma was in town,

+     So he doubled up into a wheel,

+          And rolled himself down.

+

+I asked the nurse to repeat it again, more slowly, and I

+wrote it down together with the translation.

+

+Now, I think it must be admitted that there is more in

+this rhyme to commend it to the public than there is in

+"Jack and Jill." If when that remarkable young couple

+went for the pail of water, Master Jack had carried it

+himself, he would have been entitled to some credit for

+gallantry, or if in cracking his crown he had fallen so as to

+prevent Miss Jill from "tumbling," or even in such a way

+as to break her fall and make it easier for her, there would

+have been some reason for the popularity of such a record.

+As it is, there is no way to account for it except the fact

+that it is simple and rhythmic and children like it. This

+rhyme, however, in the original, is equal to "Jack and Jill" in

+rhythm and rhyme, has as good a story, exhibits a more scientific

+tumble, with a less tragic result, and contains as good a moral

+as that found in "Jack Sprat."

+

+It is as popular all over North China as "Jack and Jill" is

+throughout Great Britain and America. Ask any Chinese child if he

+knows the "Little Mouse," and he reels it off to you as readily

+as an English-speaking child does "Jack and Jill." Does he like

+it? It is a part of his life. Repeat it to him, giving one word

+incorrectly, and he will resent it as strenuously as your little

+boy or girl would if you said,

+

+     Jack and Jill

+     Went DOWN the hill

+

+Suppose you repeat some familiar rhyme to a child differently

+from the way he learned it and see what the result will be.

+

+Having obtained this rhyme, I asked Mrs. Yin if she

+knew any more. She smiled and said she knew "lots of

+them." I induced her to tell them to me, promising her

+five hundred cash (about three cents) for every rhyme she

+could give me, good, bad, or indifferent, for I wanted to

+secure all kinds. And I did. Before I was through I had

+rhymes which ranged from the two extremes of the keenest

+parental affection to those of unrefined filthiness. The

+latter class however came not from the nurses but from

+the children themselves.

+

+When I had finished with her I had a dozen or more. I

+soon learned these so that I could repeat them in the original,

+which gave me an entering wedge to the heart of every

+man, woman or child I met.

+

+One day, as I rode through a broom-corn field on the

+back of a little donkey, my feet almost dragging on the

+ground, I was repeating some of these rhymes, when the

+driver running at my side said:

+

+"Ha, you know those children's songs, do you?"

+

+"Yes do you know any?"

+

+"Lots of them," he answered.

+

+"Lots of them" is a favorite expression with the Chinese.

+

+"Tell me some."

+

+"Did you ever hear this one?"

+

+   "Fire-fly, fire-fly,

+       Come from the hill,

+         Your father and mother

+           Are waiting here still.

+             They've brought you some sugar,

+                Some candy, and meat,

+                  For baby to eat."

+

+

+I at once dismounted and wrote it down, and promised

+him five hundred cash apiece for every new one he could

+give me. In this way, going to and from the city, in

+conversation with old nurses or servants, personal friends,

+teachers, parents or children, or foreign children who had

+been born in China and had learned rhymes from their

+nurses, I continued to gather them during the entire

+vacation, and when autumn came I had more than fifty of the

+most common and consequently the best rhymes known

+in and about Peking.

+

+A few months after I returned to the city a circular was

+sent around asking for subscriptions to a volume of Pekinese

+Folklore, published by Baron Vitali, Interpreter at the

+Italian legation, which, on examination, proved to be exactly

+what I wanted. He had collected about two hundred and

+fifty rhymes, had made a literal--not metrical--translation

+and had issued them in book form without expurgation.

+

+Others learned of my collection, and rhymes began to come

+to me from all parts of the empire. Dr. Arthur H. Smith,

+the well-known author of "Chinese Characteristics" gave

+me a collection of more than three hundred made in Shantung,

+among which were rhymes similar to those we had

+found in Peking. Still later I received other versions of these

+same rhymes from my little friend, Miss Chalfant, collected

+in a different part of Shantung from that occupied by Dr.

+Smith. I then had no fewer than five versions of

+

+     "This little pig went to market,"

+

+each having some local coloring not found in the other,

+proving that the fingers and toes furnish children with the

+same entertainment in the Orient as in the Occident, and

+that the rhyme is widely known throughout China.

+

+These nursery rhymes have never been printed in the

+Chinese language, but like our own Mother Goose before

+the year 1719, if we may credit the Boston story, they are

+carried in the minds and hearts of the children. Here arose

+the first difficulty we experienced in collecting rhymes--the

+matter of getting them complete. Few are able to repeat

+the whole of the

+

+          "House that Jack built"

+

+although it has been printed many times and they learned

+it all in their youth. The difficulty is multiplied tenfold in

+China where the rhymes have never been printed, and

+where there have grown up various versions from one

+original which the nurse had, no doubt, partly forgotten,

+but was compelled to complete for the entertainment of the

+child.

+

+A second difficulty in making such a collection is that of

+getting unobjectionable rhymes. While the Chinese classics

+are among the purest classical books of the world, there

+is yet a large proportion of the people who sully everything

+they take into their hands as well as every thought they take

+into their minds. Thus so many of their rhymes have suffered.

+

+Some have an undertone of reviling. Some speak

+familiarly of subjects which we are not accustomed to

+mention, and others are impure in the extreme.

+

+A third difficulty in making a collection of Chinese nursery

+lore is greater than either the first or the second,--I refer to

+the difficulty of a metrical rendition of the rhymes. I have

+no doubt my readers can easily find flaws in my translations

+of Chinese Mother Goose Rhymes published during the past

+year. It is much easier for me to find the flaws than the

+remedies. Many of the words used in the original have no

+written character or hieroglyphic to represent them, while

+many others, though having a written form, are, like our

+own slang expressions, not found in the dictionary.

+

+Now let us turn to a more pleasant feature of this unwritten

+nursery literature. The language is full of good rhymes,

+and all objectionable features can be cut out without injury

+to the rhyme, as it was not a part of the original, but added

+by some more unscrupulous hand.

+

+Among the nursery rhymes of all countries many refer to

+insects, birds, animals, persons, actions, trades, food or

+children. In Chinese rhymes we have the cricket, cicada,

+spider, snail, firefly, ladybug and butterfly and others.

+Among fowls we have the bat, crow, magpie, cock, hen,

+duck and goose. Of animals, the dog, cow, horse, mule,

+donkey, camel, and mouse, are the favorites. There are

+also rhymes on the snake and frog, and others without

+number on places, things and persons,--men, women and

+children.

+

+Those who hold that the Chinese do not love their

+children have never consulted their nursery lore. There is

+no language in the world, I venture to believe, which

+contains children's songs expressive of more keen and tender

+affection than some of those sung to children in China.

+

+When we hear a parent say that his child

+

+     "Is as sweet as sugar and cinnamon too,"

+

+or that

+

+     "Baby is a sweet pill,

+     That fills my soul with joy"

+

+or when we see a father, mother or nurse--for nurses sometimes

+become almost as fond of their little charge as the parents

+themselves,--hugging the child to their bosoms as they say that

+he is so sweet that "he makes you love him till it kills you," we

+begin to appreciate the affection that prompts the utterance.

+

+Another feature of these rhymes is the same as that found in the

+nursery songs of all nations, namely, the food element. "Jack

+Sprat," "Little Jacky Horner," "Four and Twenty Black-birds,"

+"When Good King Arthur Ruled the Land," and a host of others will

+indicate what I mean. A little child is a highly developed

+stomach, and anything which tells about something that ministers

+to the appetite and tends to satisfy that aching void, commends

+itself to his literary taste, and hence the popularity of many

+of our nursery rhymes, the only thought of which is about

+something good to eat. Notice the following:

+

+     Look at the white breasted crows overhead.

+     My father shot once and ten crows tumbled dead.

+     When boiled or when fried they taste very good,

+     But skin them, I tell you, there's no better food.

+

+

+In imagination I can see the reader raise his eyebrows and

+mutter, "Do the Chinese eat crows?" while at the same time he has

+been singing all his life about what a "dainty dish" "four and

+twenty blackbirds" would make for the "king," without ever

+raising the question as to whether blackbirds are good eating or

+not.

+

+We note another feature of all nursery rhymes in the

+additions made by the various persons through whose hands,

+--or should we say, through whose mouths they pass.

+

+When an American or English child hears how a certain

+benevolent dame found no bone in her cupboard to satisfy

+the cravings of her hungry dog, its feelings of compassion

+are stirred up to ask: "And then what? Didn't she get

+any meat? Did the dog die?" and the nurse is compelled

+to make another verse to satisfy the curiosity of the child

+and bring both the dame and the dog out of the dilemma in

+which they have been left. This is what happened in the

+case of "Old Mother Hubbard" as will readily be seen by

+examining the meter of the various verses. The original

+"Mother Hubbard" consisted of nothing more than the first

+six lines which contain three rhymes. All the other verses

+have but four lines and one rhyme.

+

+We find the same thing in Chinese Mother Goose. Take the

+following as an example:

+

+ He ate too much,

+   That second brother,

+ And when he had eaten his fill

+

+ He beat his  mother.

+

+This was the original rhyme. Two verses have been added without

+rhyme, reason, rhythm, sense or good taste. They are as follows:

+

+ His mother jumped up on the window-sill,

+ But the window had no crack,

+ She then looked into the looking-glass,

+ But the mirror had no back.

+

+ Then all at once she began to sing,

+ But the song it had no end

+ And then she played the monkey trick

+ And to heaven she did ascend.

+

+The moral teachings of nursery rhymes are as varied as

+the morals of the people to whom the rhymes belong. The

+"Little Mouse" already given contains both a warning and

+a penalty. The mouse which had climbed up the candle-

+stick to steal tallow was unable to get down. This was

+the penalty for stealing, and indicates to children that if

+they visit the cupboard in their mother's absence and take

+her sweetmeats without her permission, they may suffer as

+the mouse did. To leave the mouse there after he had

+repeatedly called for that halo-crowned grandmother, who

+refused to come, would have been too much for the child's

+sympathies, and so the mouse doubles himself up into a

+wheel, and rolls to the floor.

+

+In other rhymes, children are warned against stealing, but

+the penalty threatened is rather an indication of the

+untruthfulness of the parent or nurse than a promise of reform in

+the child, for they are told that,

+

+     If you steal a needle

+          Or steal a thread,

+               A pimple will grow

+                    Upon your head.

+

+     If you steal a dog

+          Or steal a cat,

+               A pimple will grow

+                    Beneath your hat.

+

+

+Boys are warned of the dire consequences if they wear

+their hats on the side of their heads or go about with ragged

+coats or slipshod feet.

+

+ If you wear your hat on the side of your head,

+ You'll have a lazy wife, 'tis said.

+ If a ragged coat or slipshod feet,

+ You'll have a wife who loves to eat.

+

+Those rhymes which manifest the affection of parents for

+children cultivate a like affection in the child. We have in

+the Chinese Mother Goose a rhyme called the Little Orphan,

+which is a most pathetic tale. A little boy tells us that,

+

+     Like a little withered flower,

+          That is dying in the earth,

+     I was left alone at seven

+          By her who gave me birth.

+

+     With my papa I was happy

+          But I feared he'd take another,

+     But now my papa's married,

+          And I have a little brother.

+

+     And he eats good food,

+          While I eat poor,

+     And cry for my mother,

+          Whom I'll see no more.

+

+Such a rhyme cannot but develop the pathetic and sympathetic

+instincts of the child, making it more kind and gentle

+to those in distress.

+

+A girl in one of the rhymes urged by instinct and desire to chase

+a butterfly, gives up the idea of catching it, presumably

+out of a feeling of sympathy for the insect.

+

+Unfortunately all their rhymes do not have this same

+high moral tone. They indicate a total lack of respect for the

+Buddhist priests. This is not necessarily against the rhyme

+any more than against the priest, but it is an unfortunate

+disposition to cultivate in children. There are constant

+sallies at the shaved noddle of the priest. They speak of

+his head as a gourd, and they class him with the tiger as a

+beast of prey.

+

+Some of the rhymes illustrate the disposition of the Chinese to

+nickname every one, from the highest official in the empire to

+the meanest beggar on the street. One of the great men of the

+present dynasty, a prime minister and intimate friend of the

+emperor, goes by the name of Humpbacked Liu. Another may be

+Cross-eyed Wang, another Club-footed Chang, another Bald-headed

+Li. Any physical deformity or mental peculiarity may give him his

+nickname. Even foreigners suffer in reputation from this national

+bad habit.

+

+A man whose face is covered with pockmarks is ridiculed by

+children in the following rhyme, which is only a sample of what

+might be produced on a score of other subjects:

+

+    Old pockmarked Ma,

+          He climbed up a tree,

+     A dog barked at him,

+          And a man caught his knee,

+     Which scared old Poxey

+          Until he couldn't see.

+

+A well-known characteristic of the Chinese is to do things

+opposite to the way in which we do them. We accuse

+them of doing things backwards, but it is we who deserve

+such blame because they antedated us in the doing of them.

+We shake each other's hands, they each shake their own

+hands. We take off our hats as a mark of respect, they

+keep theirs on. We wear black for mourning, they wear

+white. We wear our vests inside, they wear theirs outside.

+A hundred other things more or less familiar to us all,

+illustrate this rule. In some of their nursery rhymes everything

+is said and done on the "cart before the horse" plan.

+This is illustrated by a rhyme in which when the speaker

+heard a disturbance outside his door he discovered it was

+because a "dog had been bitten by a man." Of course,

+he at once rushed to the rescue. He "took up the door

+and he opened his hand." He "snatched up the dog and

+threw him at a brick." The brick bit his hand and he left

+the scene "beating on a horn and blowing on a drum."

+

+Tongue twisters are as common in Chinese as in English, and are

+equally appreciated by the children. From the nature of such

+rhymes, however, it is impossible to translate them into any

+other language.

+ 

+In one of these children's songs, a cake-seller informs the

+public in stentorian tones that his wares will restore sight to

+the blind and that

+

+     They cure the deaf and heal the lame,

+     And preserve the teeth of the aged dame.

+

+They will further cause hair to grow on a bald head and

+give courage to a henpecked husband. A girl who has been

+whipped by her mother mutters to herself how she would

+love and serve a husband if she only had one, even going to

+the extent of calling that much-despised mother-in-law her

+mother, and when overheard by her irate parent and asked

+what she was saying, she answers:

+

+     I was saying the beans are boiling nice

+     And it's just about time to add the rice.

+

+These are rather an indication of good cheer on the part

+of the children than lack of filial affection. A parent must

+be cruel indeed to make a girl willing to give up her mother

+for a mother-in-law.

+

+Another style of verses comes under the head of pure nonsense

+rhymes. They are wholly without sense and I am not sure they are

+good nonsense. They are popular, however, with the children, and

+critics may say what they will, but the children are the last

+court of appeal in case of nursery rhymes. Let me give one:

+

+     There's a cow on the mountain, the old saying goes,

+     On her legs are four feet, on her feet are eight toes.

+     Her tail is behind on the end of her back,

+     And her head is in front on the end of her neck.

+

+The Chinese nursery is well provided with rhymes

+pertaining to certain portions of the body. They have rhymes

+to repeat when they play with the five fingers, and others

+when they pull the toes; rhymes when they take hold of

+the knee and expect the child to refrain from laughing, no

+matter how much its knee is tickled; rhymes which correspond

+to all our face and sense; rhymes where the forehead

+represents the door and the five senses various other

+things, ending, of course, by tickling the child's neck.

+

+All of these have called forth rhymes among Chinese

+children similar to "little pig went to market," "forehead

+bender, eye winker," etc. The parent, or the nurse, taking

+hold of the toes of the child, repeats the following rhyme,

+as much to the amusement of the little Oriental as the

+"little pig" has always been to our own children:

+

+     This little cow eats grass,

+     This little cow eats hay,

+     This little cow drinks water,

+     This little cow runs away,

+     This little cow does nothing,

+     Except lie down all day.

+          We'll whip her.

+

+And, with that, she playfully pats the little bare foot. If it is

+the hand that is played with the fingers are taken hold of one

+after another, as the parent, or nurse, repeats the following

+rhyme:

+

+ This one's old,

+ This one's young

+ This one has 

+            no meat;

+ This one's gone

+ To buy some hay,

+ And this one's on 

+           the street.

+ 

+There are various forms of this rhyme, depending upon

+the place where it is found. The above is the Shantung

+version. In Peking it is as follows:

+

+ A great, big brother,

+ And a little brother,

+     too,

+A big bell tower,

+ And a temple and a

+     show,

+ And little baby

+     wee, wee,

+ Always wants to

+     go.

+

+The following rhyme explains itself: The nurse knocks on the

+forehead, then touches the eye, nose, ear, mouth and chin

+successively, as she repeats:

+

+     Knock at the door,

+          See a face,

+               Smell an odor,

+                    Hear a voice,

+                         Eat your dinner,

+                              Pull your chin, or

+                                   Ke chih, ke chih.

+

+Tickling the child's neck with the last two expressions.

+

+We have in English a rhyme:

+

+     If you be a gentleman,

+          As I suppose you be,

+     You'll neither laugh nor smile

+          With a tickling of your knee.

+

+I had tried many months to find if there were any finger,

+face or body games other than those already given. Our own nurse

+insisted that she knew of none, but one day I noticed her

+grabbing my little girl's knee, while she was saying:

+

+     One grab silver,

+          Two grabs gold,

+               Three don't laugh,

+                    And you'll grow old.

+

+There is no literature in China, not even in the sacred

+books, which is so generally known as their nursery

+rhymes. These are understood and repeated by the educated

+and the illiterate alike; by the children of princes and

+the children of beggars; children in the city and children in

+the country and villages, and they produce like results in

+the minds and hearts of all. The little folks laugh over the

+Cow, look sober over the Little Orphan, absorb the morals

+taught by the Mouse, and are sung to sleep by the song of 

+the Little Snail.

+

+Sometimes however they, like children in other lands, are

+skeptical as to the reality of the stories told in the songs.

+Thus I remember once hearing our old nurse telling a number

+of stories and singing a number of songs to the little folk in

+the nursery. They had accepted one after another

+the legends as they rolled off the old woman's tongue,

+without question, but pretty soon she gave them a version

+of a Wind Song which aroused their incredulity. She sang:

+

+ Old grandmother Wind has come from the East.

+ She's ridden a donkey--a dear little beast.

+ Old mother-in-law Rain has come back again.

+ She's come from the North on a horse, it is plain.

+

+ Old grandmother Snow is coming you know,

+ From the West on a crane--just see how they go.

+ And old aunty Lightning has come from the South,

+ On a big yellow dog with a bit in his mouth.

+

+"There is no grandmother Wind, is there, nurse?"

+

+"No, of course not, people only call her grandmother Wind."

+

+"Why do they call the other mother-in-law Rain?"

+

+"I suppose, because mothers-in-law are often disagreeable,

+

+just like rainy weather."

+

+"And why do they speak of snow and the crane, and lightning and a

+yellow dog?"

+

+"I suppose, because a crane is somewhat the color of snow, and a

+yellow dog swift and the color of lightning."

+

+

+CHILDREN AND CHILD-LIFE

+

+Before going to China, I could not but wonder, when I

+saw a Chinese or Japanese doll, why it was they made such

+unnatural looking things for babies to play with. On reaching

+the Orient the whole matter was explained by my first

+sight of a baby. The doll looks like the child!

+

+Nothing in China is more common than babies. Nothing

+more helpless. Nothing more troublesome. Nothing more

+attractive. Nothing more interesting.

+

+A Chinese baby is a round-faced little helpless human

+animal, whose eyes look like two black marbles over which

+the skin had been stretched, and a slit made on the bias.

+His nose is a little kopje in the centre of his face, above a

+yawning chasm which requires constant filling to insure the

+preservation of law and order. On his shaved head are left

+small tufts of hair in various localities, which give him the

+appearance of the plain about Peking, on which the traveler

+sees, here and there, a small clump of trees around a country

+village, a home, or a cemetery; the remainder of the country

+being bare. These tufts are usually on the "soft spot," in the

+back of his neck, over his ears, or in a braid or a ring on the

+side of his head.

+

+The amount of joy brought to a home by the birth of a child

+depends upon several important considerations, chief among which

+are its sex, the number and sex of those already in the family,

+and the financial condition of the home.

+

+In general the Chinese prefer a preponderance of boys, but in

+case the family are in good circumstances and already have

+several boys, they are as anxious for a girl as parents in any

+other country.

+

+The reason for this is deeper than the mere fact of sex.

+It is imbedded in the social life and customs of the people.

+A girl remains at home until she is sixteen or seventeen,

+during which time she is little more than an expense. She

+is then taken to her husband's home and her own family

+have no further control over her life or conduct. She

+loses her identity with her own family, and becomes part

+of that of her husband. This through many years and

+centuries has generated in the popular mind a feeling that

+it is "bad business raising girls for other people," and

+there are not a few parents who would prefer to bring up

+the girl betrothed to their son, rather than bring up their

+own daughter.

+

+"Selfishness!" some people exclaim when they read such

+things about the Chinese. Yes, it is selfishness; but life

+in China is not like ours--a struggle for luxuries--but a

+struggle, not for bread and rice as many suppose, but for

+cornmeal and cabbage, or something else not more palatable.

+This is the life to which most Chinese children are

+born, and parents can scarcely be blamed for preferring

+boys whose hands may help provide for their mouths, to

+girls who are only an expense.

+

+The presumption is that a Chinese child is born with the

+same general disposition as children in other countries.

+This may perhaps be the case; but either from the treatment

+it receives from parents or nurses, or because of the

+disposition it inherits, its nature soon becomes changed,

+and it develops certain characteristics peculiar to the

+Chinese child. It becomes t'ao ch'i. That almost means

+mischievous; it almost means troublesome--a little tartar--

+but it means exactly t'ao ch'i.

+

+In this respect almost every Chinese child is a little tyrant.

+Father, mother, uncles, aunts, and grandparents are all made

+to do his bidding. In case any of them seems to be recalcitrant,

+the little dear lies down on his baby back on the

+dusty ground and kicks and screams until the refractory

+parent or nurse has repented and succumbed, when he get

+up and good-naturedly goes on with his play and allows

+them to go about their business. The child is t'ao ch'i.

+

+This disposition is general and not confined to any one

+rank or grade in society, if we may credit the stories that come

+from the palace regarding the present young Emperor

+Kuang Hsu. When a boy he very much preferred foreign

+to Chinese toys, and so the eunuchs stocked the palace

+nursery with all the most wonderful toys the ingenuity and

+mechanical skill of Europe had produced. As he grew

+older the toys became more complicated, being in the form

+of gramophones, graphophones, telephones, phonographs,

+electric lights, electric cars, cuckoo clocks, Swiss watches

+and indeed all the great inventions of modern times. The

+boy was t'ao ch'i, and the eunuchs say that if he were

+thwarted in any of his undertakings, or denied anything he

+very much desired, he would dash a Swiss watch, or anything

+else he might have in his hand, to the floor, breaking

+it into atoms; and as there was no chance of using the rod

+there was no way but to spoil the child.

+

+It is amusing to listen to the women in a Chinese home

+when a baby comes. If the child is a boy the parents are

+congratulated on every hand because of the "great happiness"

+that has come to their home. If it is a girl, and there

+are more girls than boys in the family, the old nurse goes

+about as if she had stolen it from somewhere, and when she

+is congratulated, if congratulated she happens to be, she

+says with a sigh and a funereal face, "Only a 'small happiness'--

+but that isn't bad."

+

+When a child is born it is considered one year old, and its years

+are reckoned not from its birthdays but from its New Year's days.

+If it has the good fortune to be born the day before two days old

+it is reckoned two years old being one year old when born and two

+years old on its first New Year's day.

+

+The first great event in a child's life occurs when it is

+one month old. It is then given its first public reception.

+Its head is shaved amid kicking and screaming, its mother is up

+and around where she can receive the congratulations of her

+friends, its grandmother is the honored guest of the occasion,

+andthe baby is named.

+

+All the relatives and friends are invited and every one is

+expected to take dinner with the child, and, which is more

+important, to bring presents. If the family is poor, this day

+puts into the treasury of life a day of happiness and a goodly

+amount of filthy lucre. If the family is rich the presents are

+correspondingly rich, for nowhere either in Orient or Occident

+can there be found a people more lavish and generous

+in their gifts than the Chinese. All the family can afford

+is spent upon the dinner given on this occasion, with the

+assurance that they will receive in presents and money

+more than double the expense both of the dinner and the

+birth of the child. If they do not "come" they are expected

+to "send" or they "lose face." Among the middle-class, the

+presents are of a useful nature, usually in the form of money,

+clothing or silver ornaments which are always worth their weight

+in bullion.

+

+The name given the child is called its "milk" name until the boy

+enters school. Whether boy or girl it may answer a good part of

+its life to the place it occupies in the family whether first,

+second or third.

+

+If a girl she may be compelled to answer to "Little Slave," and

+if a boy to "Baldhead." But the names usually given indicate the

+place or time of birth, the hope of the parent for the child, or

+exhibit the parent's love of beauty or euphony.

+

+A friend who was educated in a school situated in Filial

+Piety Lane and who afterwards lived near Filial Piety Gate

+called his first son "Two Filials." Another friend had sons

+whose names were "Have a Man," "Have a Mountain,"

+"Have a Garden," "Have a Fish." In conversation with

+this friend about the son whose "milk" name was "Have

+a Man," I constantly spoke of the boy by his "school"

+name, the only name by which I knew him. The old man

+was perfectly blank--he knew not of whom I spoke, as he

+had not seen his son since he got his school name. Finally,

+as it began to dawn on him that I was talking of his son, he

+asked:

+

+"Whom are you talking about?"

+

+"Your son."

+

+"Oh, you mean 'Have a Man.' "

+

+This same man had a little girl called "Apple," not an

+ordinary apple, but the most luscious apple known to North

+China. I have as I write a list of names commonly applied

+to girls from which I select the following: Beautiful

+Autumn, Charming Flower, Jade Pure, Lucky Pearl, Precious

+Harp, Covet Spring; and the parent's way of speaking of

+his little girl, when not wishing to be self-depreciative, is to

+call her his "Thousand ounces of gold."

+

+The names given to boys are quite as humiliating or as

+elevating as those given to girls. He may be Number One,

+Two or Three, Pig, Dog or Flea, or he may be like Wu

+T'ing Fang a "Fragrant Palace," or like Li Hung Chang, an

+"Illustrious Bird" or "Learned Treatise."

+

+During the summer-time in North China the child goes

+almost if not completely naked. Until it is five years old,

+its wardrobe consists largely of a chest-protector and a pair

+of shoes. In the winter-time its trousers are quilted, with

+feet attached, its coat made in the same way, and it is

+anything but "clean and sweet." The odor is not unlike that

+of an up-stairs back room in a narrow alley at Five Points,

+in which dwell a whole family of emigrants.

+

+When the Chinese child is ill he does not have the same

+kind of hospital accommodations, nursing and medical skill

+at his command as do we in the West. His bed is brick,

+his pillow stuffed with bran or grass-seed, he has no sheets,

+his food is coarse and ill-adapted to a sick child's stomach.

+While his nurse may be kind, gentle and loving she is not

+always skillful, and as for the ability of his physician let the

+following child's song tell us:

+

+ My wife's little daughter once fell very ill,

+ And we called for a doctor to give her a pill.

+ He wrote a prescription which now we will give her,

+ In which he has ordered a mosquito's liver.

+ And then in addition the heart of a flea,

+ And half pound of fly-wings to make her some tea.

+

+

+When the child begins to walk and talk it begins to be

+interesting. Its father has a little push cart made by which

+it learns to walk, and the nurse goes about the court with

+it repeating ba ba, ma ma, (notice that these words for papa

+and mama are practically the same in Chinese as in English,

+the b being substituted for p), and all the various words

+which mean elder brother, younger brother, elder and

+younger sisters, uncles, aunts, grandfathers, grandmothers,

+and cousins and all the various relatives which may be

+found in its family, village or home.

+

+It is not an easy matter to learn the names of one's

+relatives in China, as there is a separate name for each showing

+whether the person whom we call uncle is father or

+mother's elder or younger brother or the husband of their

+elder or younger sister. When it comes to learning the

+names of all one's cousins it is quite a difficult affair.

+Suppose, for instance, you were to introduce me to your cousin,

+and I wanted to know which one, you might explain that

+he is the son of your mother's elder brother. In China the

+word you used for cousin would express the exact idea.

+The child begins his study of language by learning all these

+relationships.

+

+These are for the most part taught them by the nurse,

+who is an important element in the Chinese home and a

+useful adjunct to the child. Each little girl in the homes of

+the better classes has her own particular nurse, who teaches

+her nursery songs in her childhood, is her companion during

+her youth, goes with her to her husband's home, when she

+marries presumably to prevent her becoming lonesome, and remains

+with her through life. In conversation with the

+granddaughters of a duke and their old nurse, I discovered

+that the same games the little children play upon the street,

+they play in the seclusion of their green-tiled palace, and the

+same nursery songs that entice Morpheus to share the mat

+shed of the beggar's boy, entice him also to share the silken

+couch of the emperor in the palace.

+

+When a boy is old enough, he grows a queue, which takes

+the place in the life of the Chinese boy which his first pair of

+trousers does in that of the American or English boy. It is

+one of the first things he lives for; and he should not be

+despised for wearing his hair in this fashion, especially when

+we remember that George Washington and Lafayette and

+their contemporaries wore their hair in a braid down their

+backs.

+

+Besides the queue has a great variety of uses. It serves

+him in some of the games he plays. When I saw the boys

+in geometry use their queues to strike an arc or draw a circle,

+it reminded me of my college days when I had forgotten to

+take a string to class. The laborer spreads a handkerchief

+or towel over his head, wraps his queue around it and

+makes for himself a hat. The cart driver whips his mule

+with it; the beggar uses it to scare away the dogs; the

+father takes hold of his little boy's queue instead of his hand

+when walking with him on the street, or the child follows

+holding to his father's queue, and the boys use it as reins

+when they play horse. I saw this amusingly illustrated on

+the streets of Peking. Two boys were playing horse.

+Now I have always noticed that when a boy plays horse, it

+is not because he has any desire to be the horse, but the

+driver. He is willing to be horse for a time, in order that he

+may be allowed to be driver for a still longer time. A large

+boy was playing horse with a smaller one, the latter acting

+as the beast of burden. This continued for some time, when the

+smaller, either discovering that a horse is larger than a man, or

+that it is more noble to be a man than a horse, balked, and said:

+

+"Now you be horse."

+

+The older was not yet inclined to be horse, and tried in

+vain, by coaxing, scolding and whipping, to induce him to

+move, but the horse was firm. The driver was also firm, and not

+until the horse in a very unhorselike manner, gave away to tears,

+could the man be induced to let himself down to the level of a

+horse. From all of which it will be seen that the disposition of

+Chinese children is no exception to that longing for superiority

+which prevails in every human heart.

+

+All kinds of trades, professions, and employments have

+as great attraction for Chinese as for American children. A

+country boy looks forward to the time when he can stand

+up in the cart and drive the team. Children seeing a

+battalion of soldiers at once "organize a company." This

+was amusingly illustrated by a group of children in Peking

+during the Chinese-Japanese war. Each had a stick or a

+weed for a gun, except the drummer-boy, who was provided

+with an empty fruit-can. They went through various

+maneuvres, for practice, no doubt, and all seemed to be going on

+beautifully until one of those in front shouted,

+in a voice filled with fear:

+

+"The Japanese are coming, the Japanese are coming."

+

+This was the signal for a general retreat, and the children,

+in imitation of the army then in the field, retreated in

+disorder and dismay in every direction.

+

+The Chinese boys and girls are little men and women. At an early

+age they are familiar with all the rules of behaviour which

+characterize their after life and conduct. Their clothes are cut

+on the same pattern, out of cloth as those of their parents and

+grandparents. There are no kilts and knee-breeches, pinafores and

+short skirts, to make them feel that they are little people.

+

+But they are little people as really and truly as are the

+children of other countries. A gentleman in reviewing my

+"Chinese Mother Goose Rhymes" speaks of some of the

+illustrations which "present the Chinese children playing

+their sober little games." Why we should call such a game

+as "blind man's buff," "e-ni-me-ni-mi-ni-mo," "this little

+pig went to market" or "pat-a-cake" "sober little games," 

+unless it is because of preconceived notions of the Chinese

+people I do not understand. The children are dignified little

+people, but they enjoy all the attractions of child-life as

+much as other children do.

+

+It is a mistake to suppose that the life of Chinese children

+is a doleful one. It is understood, of course, that their life

+is not the same, nor to be compared with that of children

+in Europe or America: and it should be remembered further

+that the pleasures of child-life are not measured by the

+gratification of every childish whim. Many of the little

+street children who spend a large part of their time in

+efforts to support the family, when allowed to go to a fair

+or have a public holiday enjoy themselves more in a single

+day than the child of wealth, in a whole month of idleness.

+

+In addition to his games and rhymes, the fairs which are

+held regularly in the great Buddhist temples in different 

+parts of the cities, are to the Chinese boy what a country

+fair, a circus or Fourth of July is to an American farmer's

+boy or girl. He has his cash for candy or fruit, his crackers

+which he fires off at New Year's time, making day a time

+of unrest, and night hideous. Kite-flying is a pleasure

+which no American boy appreciates as does the Chinese, a

+pleasure which clings to him till he is three-score years and

+ten, for it is not uncommon to find a child and his grandfather

+in the balmy days of spring flying their kites together.

+He has his pet birds which he carries around in cages or on

+a perch unlike any other child we have ever seen. He has

+his crickets with which he amuses himself--not "gambles"

+--and his gold fish which bring him days and years of

+delight. Indeed the Chinese child, though in the vast

+majority of cases very poor, has ample provision for a very

+good time, and if he does not have it, it must be his own

+fault.

+

+Statements about the life of the children, however, may

+be nothing more than personal impressions, and are usually

+colored as largely by the writer's prejudices as by the

+conditions of the children. Some of us are so constituted as to

+see the dark side of the picture, others the bright. Let us

+go with the boys and girls to their games. Let us play

+with their toys and be entertained by the shows that entertain

+them, and see if they are not of the same flesh and

+blood, heart and sentiment as we. We shall find that the

+boys and girls live together, work together, study together,

+play together, have their heads shaved alike and quarrel

+with each other until they are seven years old, the period

+which brings to an end the life of the Chinese child. From

+this period it is the boy or the girl.

+

+

+GAMES PLAYED BY BOYS

+

+Children's games are always interesting. Chinese games

+are especially so because they are a mine hitherto

+unexplored. An eminent archdeacon once wrote: "The Chinese

+are not much given to athletic exercises." A well-known

+doctor of divinity states that, "their sports do not require

+much physical exertion, nor do they often pair off, or choose

+sides and compete, in order to see who are the best

+players," while a still more prominent writer tells us that,

+"active, manly sports are not popular in the South." Let us

+see whether these opinions are true.

+

+Two years ago a letter from Dr. Luther Gulick, at present

+connected with the Pratt Institute, Brooklyn, N. Y., came to

+us while in Peking, asking that we study into the character

+of Chinese children's games. Dr. Gulick was preparing a

+series of lectures on the "Psychology of Play." He desired

+to secure as much reliable information as possible regarding

+the play-life of the children of the East, in order that he

+might discover what relation exists between the games of

+Oriental and those of Occidental children. By so doing he

+would learn the effect of play on the mental and physical

+development as well as the character of children, and

+through them upon the human race as a whole. We were

+fortunate in having at our disposal a large number of

+students connected with Peking University, the preparatory,

+intermediate and primary schools, together with 150 girls in

+attendance at the girls' high school.

+

+We received the letter at four o'clock, at which time the

+students had just been dismissed from school, and were taking

+their afternoon meal, but at 4:30 we went to the playground,

+notebook in hand, called together some of our most interesting

+boys, explained to them our object, and asked them to play for

+us. Some one may say that this was the worst possible thing to

+do, as it would make the children self-conscious and hence

+unnatural--the sequel, however, will show.

+

+At first that was exactly what happened. The children

+tittered, and looked at each other in blank astonishment,

+then one of them walked away and several others gathered

+about us. We repeated our explanation in order to secure

+their interest, set their minds to work thinking up games,

+and do away with the embarrassment, and it was only a

+few minutes before an intelligent expression began to appear

+in the eyes of some of the boys, and one of them, who was

+always ready for anything new, turned to his companion and said:

+

+"You go and find Chi, and bring him here."

+ 

+"Who is Chi?" we inquired.

+

+"He is the boy who knows more games than any of the rest of us,"

+he explained.

+

+Away he ran and soon reappeared with a very unpromising 

+looking boy whom we recognized as a street waif that had been

+taken into what some one called our "raggedy school" a few years

+before. He was a glum looking boy--a boy without a smile. There

+was a set expression on his face which might be interpreted as

+"life is not worth living," or, which would be an equally

+legitimate interpretation in the present instance, "these games

+are of no importance. If you want them we can play any number of

+them for you, but what will you do with them after you get them?"

+

+All the crowd began at once to explain to Chi what we  wanted,

+and he looked more solemn than ever, then we came to his rescue.

+

+"Chi," we asked, "what kind of games do boys play?"

+

+Slowly and solemnly Chi wound one leg around the other as he

+answered:

+

+"Lots of them."

+

+This is the stereotyped answer that will come from any

+Chinaman to almost any question he may be asked about

+things Chinese.

+"For instance?" we further inquired.

+

+"Forcing the city gates," he answered.

+

+"Play it for me."

+

+The boys at once appointed captains who chose sides

+and they formed themselves into two lines facing each

+other, those of each line taking fast hold of each other's

+hands. The boys on one side then sang:

+

+     He stuck a feather in his hat,

+          And hurried to the town

+     And children met him with a horse

+          For the gates were broken down.

+

+Then one from the other side ran with all his force,

+throwing himself upon the hands of the boys who had

+sung, the object being to "break through," in which case

+he took the two whose hands had been parted to "his

+side," while if he failed to break through he had to remain

+on their side. The others then sang. One from this group

+tried to break through their line, and thus they alternated

+until one side or the other was broken up.

+

+The boys were panting and red in the face when the

+game was over, a strong argument against the Chinese-are-

+not-much-given-to-vigorous-exercise theory.

+

+"Now play something which does not require so much

+exercise," we requested.

+

+Every one looked at Chi, not that the other boys did not

+know the games, but simply because this matter-of-fact

+boy was their natural leader in this kind of sport.

+

+"Blind man," he said quietly.

+

+At once a handkerchief was tied around the eyes of one of the

+boys who was willing to be "blind man," and a game corresponding

+almost exactly to our own "blind man's buff" was played, without

+the remotest embarrassment, but with as much naturalness as

+though neither teacher nor spectator was near them.

+

+"Have you any other games which require strength?"

+we inquired.

+

+"Man-wheel," said Chi in his monosyllabic way.

+

+"Play it, please."

+

+"Go and call Wei-Yuan," to one of the smaller boys.

+

+The boy ran off to find the one indicated, and Chi

+

+selected two other middle-sized and two small boys.

+When Wei-Yuan, a larger but very good-natured, kindly-

+dispositioned lad, came, the two middle-sized boys stood

+beside him, one facing north, the other south, and caught

+each other's hand over Wei-Yuan's shoulder. The two

+smaller boys then stood beside these two, each of whom

+clutched hold of the small boys' girdles, who in turn

+clutched their girdles and Wei-Yuan took their disengaged

+hands. Thus the five boys were firmly bound together.

+The wheel then began to turn, the small boys were gradually

+lifted from the ground and swung or whirled around

+in an almost horizontal position.

+

+"This game requires more strength," Chi explained, "than any

+other small boys' game."

+

+"Have you any games more vigorous than this?"

+

+"Pitching the stone lock, and lifting the stone dumb-bells, but

+they are for men."

+

+"What is that game you were playing a few days ago in

+which you used one stick to knock another?"

+

+"One is striking the stick, and another is knocking the stick."

+

+"Play one of them."

+

+Chi drew two lines on the ground eight feet apart, on one

+of which he put a stick. He then threw another stick at it,

+the object being to drive it over the other line. He who

+first succeeds in driving it over the line wins the game.

+The sticks are ten to fifteen inches long.

+

+Striking the stick is similar to tip-cat which we have

+often seen played by boys on the streets of New York. The

+children mark out a square five or six feet on each side.

+The striker takes a position inside, with his feet spread apart

+as wide as possible, to give him a better command of the

+square. One of the others places the block in the position

+which he supposes will be most difficult for the striker to

+hit. The latter is then at liberty to twist around on one

+foot, placing the other outside the square, in order if possible

+to secure a position from which he can strike to advantage.

+He then throws a stick about fifteen inches long at

+the block to drive it out of the square. If he fails, the one

+who placed the block takes the stick, and another places the

+block for him. If he succeeds he has the privilege of striking

+the block three times as follows: He first strikes it

+perpendicularly, which causes it to bound up two or three feet,

+when he hits it as one would hit a ball, driving it as far as

+possible. This he repeats three times, and if he succeeds

+in driving it the distance agreed upon, which may be 20,

+50, 200, 300, 500 or more feet, he wins the game. If not

+he brings back the block and tries again, continuing

+to strike until he fails to drive it out of the square. This

+game develops ingenuity in placing the block and skill,

+in striking, and is one of the most popular of all boys'

+games.

+

+When they had finished striking the stick one of the

+smaller children went over to where Chi was standing and

+whispered in his ear. The expression of his face remained

+as unchangeable as that of a stone image, as he called out:

+

+"Select fruit."

+

+The boys danced about in high glee, selected two captains

+who chose sides, and they all squatted down in two rows

+twenty feet apart. Each boy was given the name of some

+kind of fruit, such as apples, pears, peaches, quinces or

+plums, all of which are common about Peking. The captain

+on one side then blindfolded one of his boys, while

+one from the other group arose and stealthily walked over

+and touched him, returning to his place among his own

+group and taking as nearly as possible the position he had

+when the other was blindfolded. In case his companions

+are uncertain as to whether his position is exactly the same,

+they all change their position, in order to prevent the one

+blindfolded from guessing who it was who left his place.

+

+The covering was then removed from his eyes, he went

+over to the other side, examined carefully if perchance he

+might discover, from change of position, discomfort in

+squatting, or a trace of guilt in the face or eyes of any of

+them, a clue to the guilty party. He "made faces" to try

+to cause the guilty one to laugh. He gesticulated, grimaced,

+did everything he could think of, but they looked blank and

+unconcerned, or all laughed together, allowing no telltale look

+to appear on their faces. His pantomimes sometimes

+brought out the guilty one, but in case they did not, his last

+resort was to risk a guess, and so he made his selection. If he

+was right he took the boy to his side; if wrong, he stayed

+on their side. One of their side was then blindfolded,

+and the whole was repeated until one group or the other lost all

+its men. The game is popular among girls as well as boys.

+

+"Do you have any other guessing games?" we asked Chi.

+

+"Yes, there is point at the moon or the stars," he answered, "and

+blind man is also a guessing game."

+

+By this time the boys had become enthusiastic, and had entirely

+forgotten that they were playing for us or indeed for any

+purpose. It was a new experience, this having their games taken

+in a notebook, and each was anxious not only that he play well,

+but that no mistake be made by any one. The more Chi realized the

+importance of playing the games properly the more solemn he

+became, if indeed it were possible to be more solemn than was his

+normal condition. He now changed to a game of an entirely

+different character from those already played. Those developed

+strength, skill or curiosity; this developed quick reaction in

+the players.

+

+"What shall we play?" inquired one of the boys.

+

+"Queue," answered Chi.

+

+Immediately every boy jerked his queue over his shoulder

+and began to edge away from his companions. But as he

+walked away from one he drew near another, and a sudden

+calling of his name would so surprise him that in turning

+his head to see who spoke his short queue would be jerked

+back over his shoulder and he received a dozen slaps from

+his companions, all of whom were waiting for just such an

+opportunity. This is the object of the game--to catch a

+boy with his queue down his back. Some of the boys, more

+spry than others, would move away to a distance, and then as

+though all unconsciously, allow their queue to hang down

+the back in its natural position, depending upon their fleetness

+or their agility in getting out of the way or bringing the

+queue around in front. This game is peculiarly interesting

+and caused much hilarity. At times even the solemn face

+of Chi relaxed into a smile.

+

+"Honor," called out Chi, and as in the circus when the

+ringmaster cracks his whip, everything changed. The boys

+each hooked the first finger of his right hand with that of

+his companion and then pulled until their fingers broke

+apart, when they each uttered the word "Honor." This

+must not be spoken before they broke apart, but as soon as

+possible after, and he who was first heard was entitled to

+an obeisance on the part of the other. Those who failed

+the first trial sat down, and those who succeeded paired off

+and pulled once more, and so on until only one was left,

+who, as in the spelling-bees of our boyhood days, became

+the hero of the hour.

+

+Chi, however, was not making heroes, or was it that he

+did not want to hurt the feelings of those who were less

+agile; at any rate he called out "Hockey," and the boys at

+once snatched up their short sticks and began playing at a

+game that is not unlike our American "shinny," a game

+which is so familiar to every American boy as to make

+description unnecessary--the principal difference between

+this and the American game being that the boys all try to

+prevent one boy from putting a ball into what they call the

+big hole, which, like the others, tended to develop quickness

+of action in the boys.

+

+

+I was familiar with the fact that there are certain games

+which tend to develop the parental or protective instinct in

+children, while certain others develop the combative and

+destructive, as for instance playing with dolls develops the

+mother-instinct in girls; tea-parties, the love of society; and

+paper dolls teach them how to arrange the furniture in their

+houses; while on the other hand, wrestling, boxing, sparring,

+battles, and all such amusements if constantly engaged in by

+boys, tend to make them, if properly guided and instructed, brave

+and patriotic; but if not properly led, cause them to be

+quarrelsome, domineering, cruel, coarse and rough, and I wondered

+if the Chinese boys had any such games.

+

+"Chi," I asked, "do you have any such games as host and guest, or

+games in which the large boys protect the small ones?"

+

+"Host and guest," said Chi.

+

+The boys at once arranged themselves promiscuously over

+the playground, and with a few peanuts, or sour dates

+which they picked up under the date trees, with all the

+ceremony of their race, they invited the others to dine with

+them. After playing thus for a moment, Chi called out:

+

+"Roast dog meat."

+

+The children gathered in a group, put the palms of their

+hands together, squatted in a bunch or ring, and placed their

+hands together in the centre to represent the pot. The boy

+on the left of the illustration represents Mrs. Wang, the

+guest of the occasion, while Chi himself stands on the right

+with his hand on the head of one of the boys. Chi walked

+around the ring while he sang:

+

+     Roast, roast, roast dog meat,

+     The second pot smells bad,

+     The little pot is sweet,

+     Come, Mrs. Wang, please,

+     And eat dog meat.

+

+He then invited Mrs. Wang to come and partake of a dinner

+of dog meat with him, and the following conversation

+ensued.

+         

+          I cannot walk.

+     I'll hire a cart for you.

+          I'm afraid of the bumping.

+     I'll hire a sedan chair for you.

+          I'm afraid of the jolting.

+     I'll hire a donkey for you.

+          I'm afraid of falling off.

+     I'll carry you.

+          I have no clothes.

+     I'll borrow some for you.

+          I have no hair ornaments.

+     I'll make some for you.

+          I have no shoes.

+     I'll buy some for you.

+

+This conversation may be carried on to any length,

+according to the fertility of the minds of the children, the

+excuses of Mrs. Wang at times being very ludicrous. All

+these, however, being met, the host carries her off on his

+back to partake of the dainties of a dog meat feast.

+

+"What were you playing a few days ago when all the boys lay in a

+straight line?"

+

+"Skin the snake."

+

+The boys danced for glee. This was one of their favorite games.

+

+They all stood in line one behind the other. They bent

+forward, and each put one hand between his legs and thus

+grasped the disengaged hand of the boy behind him.

+

+Then they began backing. The one in the rear lay down

+and they backed over astride of him, each lying down as he

+backed over the one next behind him with the other's head

+between his legs and his head between the legs of his

+neighbor, keeping fast hold of hands. They were thus

+lying in a straight line.

+

+The last one that lay down then got up, and as he walked

+astride the line raised each one after him until all were up,

+when they let go hands, stood straight, and the game was

+finished.

+

+

+"Have you any other games which develop the protective instinct

+in boys?" we inquired of Chi.

+

+"The hawk catching the young chicks," said the matter-of-fact

+boy, answering my question and directing the boys at the same

+time.

+

+The children selected one of their number to represent the

+hawk and another the hen, the latter being one of the largest

+and best natured of the group, and one to whom the small

+boys naturally looked for protection.

+

+They formed a line with the mother hen in front, each

+clutching fast hold of the others' clothing, with a large active

+boy at the end of the line.

+

+The hawk then came to catch the chicks, but the mother

+hen spread her wings and moved from side to side keeping

+between the hawk and the brood, while at the same time 

+the line swayed from side to side always in the opposite

+direction from that in which the hawk was going. Every

+chick caught by the hawk was taken out of the line until

+they were all gone.

+

+One of the boys whispered something to Chi.

+

+"Strike the poles," exclaimed the latter.

+

+As soon as they began playing we recognized it as a game we had

+already seen.

+

+The boys stood about four feet apart, each having a stick four or

+five feet long which he grasped near the middle. As they repeated

+the following rhyme in concert they struck alternately the upper

+and lower ends of the sticks together, occasionally half

+inverting them and thus striking the upper ends together in an

+underhand way. They struck once for each accented syllable of the

+following rhyme, making it a very rhythmical game.

+

+          Strike the stick,

+          One you see.

+ I'll strike you and you strike me.

+          Strike the stick,

+          Twice around,

+ Strike it hard for a good, big sound.

+          Strike it thrice,

+          A stick won't hurt.

+ The magpie wears a small white shirt.

+          Strike again.

+          Four for you.

+ A camel, a horse, and a Mongol too.

+          Strike it five--

+          Five I said,

+ A mushroom grows with dirt on its head.

+          Strike it six

+          Thus you do,

+ Six good horsemen caught Liu Hsiu.

+          Strike it seven

+          For 'tis said

+ A pheasant's coat is green and red.

+          Strike it eight,

+          Strike it right,

+ A gourd on the house-top blossoms white.

+          Strike again,

+          Strike it nine,

+ We'll have some soup, some meat and wine.

+          Strike it ten,

+          Then you stop,

+ A small, white blossom on an onion top.

+

+Chi did not wait for further suggestion from any one, but called

+out:

+

+"Throw cash."

+

+The boys all ran to an adjoining wall, each took a cash

+from his purse or pocket, and pressing it against the wall,

+let it drop. The one whose cash rolled farthest away took

+it up and threw it against the wall in such a way as to make

+it bound back as far as possible.

+

+Each did this in turn. The one whose cash bounded

+farthest, then took it up, and with his foot on the place

+whence he had taken it, he pitched or threw it in turn at

+each of the others. Those he hit he took up. When he

+missed one, all who remained took up their cash and struck

+the wall again, going through the same process as before.

+The one who wins is the one who takes up most cash.

+

+This seemed to call to mind another pitching game, for

+Chi said once more in his old military way:

+

+"Pitch brickbats."

+

+The boys drew two lines fifteen feet apart. Each took a

+piece of brick, and, standing on one line pitched to see who

+could come nearest to the other.

+

+The one farthest from the line set up his brick on the line

+and the one nearest, standing on the opposite line, pitched

+at it, the object being to knock it over.

+

+If he failed he set up his brick and the other pitched at it.

+

+If he succeeded, he next pitched it near the other, hopped

+over and kicked his brick against that of his companion,

+knocking it over. Then he carried it successively on his

+head, on each shoulder, on back and breast (walking), in

+the bend of his thigh and the bend of his knee (hopping),

+and between his legs (shuffling), each time dropping it on

+the other brick and knocking it over.

+

+Finally he marked a square enclosing the brick, eighteen

+inches each side, and hopped back and forth over both

+square and brick ten times which constituted him winner of

+the game.

+

+Chi had become so expert in pitching and dropping the

+brick as to be able to play the game without an error. The

+shuffling and hopping often caused much merriment.

+

+"What is that game," we inquired of Chi, "the boys on

+the street play with two marbles?"

+

+Without directly answering my question Chi turned to the boys and

+said:

+

+"Kick the marbles."

+

+The boys soon produced from somewhere,--Chinese boys

+can always produce anything from anywhere,--two marbles

+an inch and a half in diameter. Chi put one on the ground,

+and with the toe of his shoe upon it, gave it a shove. Then

+placing the other, he shoved it in the same way, the object

+being to hit the first.

+

+There are two ways in which one may win. The first

+boy says to the second, kick this marble north (south, east

+or west) of the other at one kick. If he succeeds he wins,

+if he fails the other wins.

+

+If he puts it north as ordered, he may kick again to hit

+the other ball, in which case he wins again. If he hits the

+ball and goes north, as ordered, at one kick, he wins double.

+

+Each boy tries to leave the balls in as difficult a position

+as possible for his successor; and here comes in a peculiarity

+which leaves this game unique among the games of the world. If

+the position in which the balls are left is too difficult for the

+other to play he may refuse to kick and the first is compelled to

+play his own difficult game--or like Haman--to hang on his own

+gallows. It recognizes the Chinese golden rule of not doing to

+others what you would  not have them do to you.

+

+The boys spent a long time playing this game--indeed they seemed

+to forget they were playing for us, and we were finally compelled

+to call them off.

+

+Chi had turned the marbles over to the others as soon as

+he had fairly started it, and stood in that peculiar fashion of

+his with one leg wound around the other, and when we

+called to them, he simply said as though it were the next

+part of the same game:

+

+"Kick the shoes."

+

+The boys all took off their shoes--an easy matter for an

+Oriental--and piled them in a heap. At a given sign they

+all kicked the pile scattering the shoes in every direction,

+and each snatched up, and, for the time, kept what he got.

+Those who were very agile got their own shoes, or a pair

+which would fit them, while those who were slow only

+secured a single shoe, and that either too large or too small.

+It was amusing to see a large-footed boy with a small shoe,

+and a boy with small feet having a shoe or shoes much too

+large for him.

+

+The game was a good test of the boys' agility.

+

+On consulting our watch we found it would soon be time for the

+boys to enter school, but asked them to play one more game.

+

+"Cat catching mice," said Chi.

+

+The children selected one of their company to represent the cat

+and another the mouse.

+

+The remainder formed a ring with the mouse inside and

+the cat outside, and while the ring revolved, the following

+conversation took place:

+

+     "What o'clock is it?"

+          "Just struck nine."

+

+"Is the mouse at home?"

+          "He's about to dine."

+

+All the time the mouse was careful to keep as far as possible

+from the cat.

+

+The ring stopped revolving and the cat popped in at this

+side and the mouse out at the other. It is one of the rules

+of the game that the cat must follow exactly in the footsteps

+of the mouse. They wound in and out of the ring for some time but

+at last the mouse was caught and "eaten," the eating process

+being the amusing part of the game. It is impossible to describe

+it as every "cat" does it differently, and one of the virtues of

+a cat is to be a good eater.

+

+The boys continued to play until the bell rang for the

+evening session. They referred to many different games

+which they had received from Europeans, but played only

+those which Chi had learned upon the street before he

+entered school. This was repeated day after day, until we

+had gathered a large collection of their most common, and

+consequently their best, games, the number of which was

+an indication of the richness of the play life of Chinese boys.

+

+Another peculiarly interesting fact was the leadership of

+Chi. The Chinese boy, like the Chinese man is a genuine

+democrat and is ready to follow the one who knows what he

+is about and is competent to take the lead, with little regard

+to social position. It is the civil service idea of a genuine

+democracy ingrained in childhood.

+

+

+GAMES PLAYED BY GIRLS

+

+After having made the collection of boys' games we

+undertook to obtain in a similar way, fullest information

+concerning games played by the girls. Of course, it was

+impossible to do it alone, for the appearance of a man

+among a crowd of little girls in China is similar to that of a

+hawk among a flock of small chicks--it results in a tittering

+and scattering in every direction, or a gathering together in

+a dock under the shelter of the school roof or the wings of

+the teacher. One of the teachers, however, Miss Effie

+Young, kindly consented to go with us, and a goodly

+number of the small girls, after a less than usual amount of

+tittering and whispering, gathered about us to see what was

+wanted. The smallest among them was the most brave,

+and Miss Young explained that this was a "little street

+waif" who had been taken into the school because she had

+neither home nor friends, with the hope that something

+might be done to save her from an unhappy fate.

+

+"Do you know any games?" we asked her.

+

+She put her hands behind her, hung her head, shuffled

+in an embarrassed manner, and answered: "Lots of them."

+

+"Play some for me."

+

+This small girl after some delay took control of the party

+and began arranging them for a game, which she called "going

+to town," similar to one which the boys called "pounding rice."

+Two of the girls stood back to back, hooked their arms, and as

+one bent the other from the ground, and thus alternating, they

+sang:

+

+     Up you go, down you see,

+     Here's a turnip for you and me;

+     Here's a pitcher, we'll go to town;

+     Oh, what a pity, we've fallen down.

+

+At which point they both sat down back to back, their arms still

+locked, and asked and answered the following questions:

+

+     What do you see in the heavens bright?

+          I see the moon and the stars at night.

+     What do you see in the earth, pray tell?

+          I see in the earth a deep, deep well.

+     What do you see in the well, my dear?

+          I see a frog and his voice I hear.

+     What is he saying there on the rock?

+          Get up, get up, ke'rh kua, ke'rh kua.

+

+They then tried to get up, but, with their arms locked,

+they found it impossible to do so, and rolled over and got

+up with great hilarity.

+

+This seemed to suggest to our little friend another game,

+which she called "turning the mill." The girls took hold

+of each other's hands, just as the boys do in "churning

+butter," but instead of turning around under their arms they

+turn half way, put one arm up over their head, bringing

+their right or left sides together, one facing one direction

+and one the other; then, standing still, the following dialogue

+took place:

+

+     Where has the big dog gone?

+          Gone to the city.

+     Where has the little dog gone?

+          Run away.

+

+Then, as they began to turn, they repeated:

+

+     The big dog's gone to the city;

+     The little dog's run away;

+     The egg has fallen and broken,

+     And the oil's leaked out, they say.

+     But you be a roller

+     And hull with power,

+     And I'll be a millstone

+     And grind the flour.

+

+As soon as this game was finished our little friend

+arranged the children against the wall for another game.

+Everything was in readiness. They were about to begin,

+when one of the larger girls whispered something in her

+ear. She stepped back, put her hands behind her, hung

+her head and thought a moment.

+

+"Go on," we said.

+

+"No, we can't play that; there is too much bad talk in it."

+This is one of the unfortunate features of Chinese children's

+games and rhymes. There is an immense amount of bad talk in them.

+

+She at once called out:

+

+"Meat or vegetables."

+

+Each girl began to scurry around to find a pair of old

+shoes, which may be picked up almost anywhere in China,

+and putting one crosswise of the other, they let them fall.

+The way they fell indicated what kind of meat or vegetables

+they were. If they both fell upside down they were the big black

+tiger. If both fell on the side they were double beans.

+If one fell right side up and the other on its side they were

+beans. If both were right side up they were honest officials.

+(What kind of meat or vegetables honest officials are it is

+difficult to say, but that never troubles the Chinese child.)

+If one is right side and the other wrong side up they are

+dogs' legs. If the toe of one rests on the top of the other,

+both right side up and at right angles, they form a dark

+hole or an alley.

+

+The child whose shoes first form an alley must throw a

+pebble through this alley--that is, under the toe of the shoe

+--three times, or, failing to do so, one of the number takes

+up the shoes, and standing on a line, throws them all back

+over her head. Then she hops to each successively, kicking

+it back over the line, each time crossing the line herself, until

+all are over. In case she fails another tries it in the same

+way, and so on, till some one succeeds. This one then takes

+the two shoes of the one who got the alley, and, hanging

+them successively on her toe, kicks them as far as possible.

+The possessor of the shoes, starting from the line, hops to

+each, picks it up and hops back over the line with it, which

+ends the game. It is a vigorous hopping game for little girls.

+

+The girls were pretty well exhausted when this game was over and

+we asked them to play something which required less exercise.

+

+"Water the flowers," said the small leader.

+

+Several of them squatted down in a circle, put their hands

+together in the centre to represent the flowers. One of their

+number gathered up the front of her garment in such a way as to

+make a bag, and went around as if sprinkling water on their

+heads, at the same time repeating:

+

+     "I water the flowers, I water the flowers,

+     I water them morning and evening hours,

+     I never wait till the flowers are dry,

+     I water them ere the sun is high."

+

+She then left a servant in charge of them while she went

+to dinner. While she was away one of them was stolen.

+

+Returning she asked: "How is this that one of my flowers is

+gone?"

+

+"A man came from the south on horseback and stole one

+before I knew it. I followed him but how could I catch a

+man on horseback?"

+

+After many rebukes for her carelessness, she again sang:

+

+     "A basin of water, a basin of tea,

+     I water the flowers, they're op'ning you see."

+

+Again she cautioned the servant about losing any of the

+flowers while she went to take her afternoon meal, but another

+flower was stolen and this time by a man from the west.

+

+When the mistress returned, she again scolded the servant,

+after which she sang:

+

+     "A basin of water, another beside,

+     I water the flowers, they're opening wide."

+

+This was continued until all the flowers were gone. One

+had been taken by a carter, another by a donkey-driver,

+another by a muleteer, another by a man on a camel, and

+finally the last little sprig was eaten by a chicken. The

+servant was soundly berated each time and cautioned to be

+more careful, which she always promised but never

+performed, and was finally dismissed in disgrace without either

+a recommendation, or the wages she had been promised when hired.

+

+The game furnishes large opportunity for invention on the part of

+the servant, depending upon the number of those to be stolen.

+This little girl seemed to be at her wit's end when she gave as

+the excuse for the loss of the last one that it had been eaten by

+a chicken.

+

+This game suggested to our little friend another which proved to

+be the sequel to the one just described, and she called out:

+

+"The flower-seller."

+

+The girl who had just been dismissed appeared from behind the

+corner of the house with all the stolen "flowers," each holding

+to the other's skirts. At the same time she was calling out:

+

+          "Flowers for sale,

+               Flowers for sale,

+          Come buy my flowers

+               Before they get stale."

+

+The original owner hereupon appeared and called to her:

+

+"Hey! come here, flower-girl, those flowers look like mine," and

+she took one away.

+

+The flower-seller did not stop to argue the question but

+hurried off crying:

+

+          "Flowers for sale," etc.

+

+The original owner again called to her:

+

+"Ho! flower-seller, come here, those flowers are certainly mine,"

+whereupon she took them all and whipped the flower-seller who ran

+away crying.

+

+As the little flower-seller ran away crying in her sleeve,

+she stumbled over an old flower-pot that lay in the school

+court. This accident seemed to act as a reminder to our

+little leader for she called out,

+

+"Flower-pot."

+

+The girls divided themselves into companies of three and stood in

+the form of a triangle, each with her left hand holding the right

+hand of the other, their hands being crossed in the centre.

+

+Then by putting the arms of two back of the head of the third

+she was brought into the centre (steps into the well), and by

+stepping over two other arms, she goes out on the opposite

+side, so that whereas she was on the left side of this and

+the right side of that one, she now stands on the right side of

+this and the left side of that girl. In the same way the second

+and third girls go through, and so on as long as they wish to

+keep up the game, saying or singing the following rhyme:

+

+     You first cross over, and then cross back,

+     And step in the well as you cross the track,

+     And then there is something else you do,

+     Oh, yes, you make a flower-pot too.

+

+By this time the girls had lost most of their strangeness

+or embarrassment and continued the flower-pot until we

+were compelled to remind them that they were playing for

+us. Everybody let go hands and the little general called out,

+

+"The cow's tail."

+

+One girl with a small stick in her hand squatted down pretending

+to be digging and the others took a position one behind the other

+similar to the hawk catching the chicks. They walked up to the

+girl digging and engaged in the following conversation:

+

+     "What are you digging?"

+          "Digging a hole."

+     "What is it for?"

+          "My pot for to boil."

+     "What will you heat?"

+          "Some water and broth."

+     "How use the water?"

+          "I'll wash some cloth.

+     "What will you make?"

+          "I'll make a bag."

+     "And what put in it?"

+          "A knife and a rag."

+     "What is the knife for?"

+          "To kill your lambs."

+     "What have they done?"

+          "They've eaten my yams."

+     "How high were they?"

+          "About so high."

+     "Oh, that isn't high."

+          "As high as the sky."

+

+

+"What is your name?"

+     "My name is Grab, what is your name?"

+     "My name is Turn."

+"Turn once for me."

+

+They all walked around in a circle and as they turned they sang:

+

+     "We turn about once,

+         Or twice I declare,

+     And she may grab,

+         But we don't care."

+

+     "Can't you grab once for us?"

+     "Yes, but what I grab I keep."

+

+She then ran to "grab" one of the "lambs" but they kept behind

+the front girl just as the boys did in the hawk catching the

+chicks. After awhile however, they were all caught.

+

+Why this game is called "cow's tail" and the girls called

+"lambs," we do not know. We asked the girls why and

+their answer was, "There is no reason."

+

+The girls were panting with the running before they were

+all caught and we suggested that they rest awhile, but

+instead the little leader called out:

+

+"Let out the doves."

+

+One of the larger girls took hold of the hands of two of

+the smaller, one of whom represented a dove and the other

+a hawk. The hawk stood behind her and the dove in front.

+

+She threw the dove away as she might pitch a bird into

+the air, and as the child ran it waved its arms as though they

+were wings. She threw the hawk in the same way, and it

+followed the dove.

+

+She then clapped her hands as the Chinese do to bring

+their pet birds to them, and the dove if not caught, returned

+to the cage. This is a very pretty game for little children.

+

+By this time the girls were all rested and our little friend

+said:

+

+"Seek for gold."

+

+Three or four of the girls gathered up some pebbles,

+squatted down in a group and scattered them as they would

+a lot of jackstones. Then one drew her finger between two

+of the stones and snapped one against the other. If she hit

+it the two were taken up and put aside.

+

+She then drew her finger between two more and snapped them.

+

+If she missed, another girl took up what were left,

+scattered them, snapped them, took them up, and so on until one

+or another got the most of the pebbles and thus won the game.

+Our little friend was reminded of another and she called out:

+

+"The cow 's eye."

+ 

+Immediately the girls all sat down in a ring and put their feet

+together in the centre. Then one of their number repeated the

+following rhyme, tapping a foot with each accented syllable.

+

+     One, two, three, and an old cow's eye,

+     When a cow s eye's blind she'll surely die.

+     A piece of skin and a melon too,

+     If you have money I'll sell to you,

+          But if you're without,

+          I'll put you out.

+

+The foot on which her finger happened to rest when she said "out"

+was excluded from the ring. Again she repeated the rhyme

+excluding a foot with each repetition till all but one were out.

+

+Up to this point all the children were in a nervous quiver

+waiting to see which foot would be left, but now the fun

+began, for they took the shoe off and every one slapped

+that unfortunate foot. This was done with good-natured

+vigor but without intention to hurt. It was amusing to see

+the children squirm as they neared the end of the game.

+

+This game finished, the little girl called out:

+

+"Pat your hands and knees."

+

+The girls sat down in pairs and, after the style of "Bean

+Porridge Hot," clapped hands to the following rhyme:

+

+               Pat your hands and knees,

+               On January first,

+     The old lady likes to go a sightseeing most.

+               Pat your hands and knees,

+               On February second,

+     The old lady likes a piece of candy it is reckoned.

+               Pat your hands and knees,

+               On March the third,

+     The old lady likes a Canton pipe I have heard.

+               Pat your hands and knees,

+               On April fourth,

+     The old lady likes bony fish from the north.

+               Pat your hands and knees,

+               The fifth of May,

+     The old lady likes sweet potatoes every day.

+               Pat your hands and knees,

+               The sixth of June,

+     The old lady eats fat pork with a spoon.

+               Pat your hands and knees,

+               The seventh of July,

+     The old lady likes to eat a fat chicken pie.

+               Pat your hands and knees,

+               On August eight,

+     The old lady likes to see the lotus flowers straight.

+               Pat your hands and knees,

+               September nine,

+     The old lady likes to drink good hot wine.

+               Pat your hands and knees,

+               October ten,

+

+     The old lady, you and I, may meet  hope again.

+

+This we afterwards discovered is very widely known throughout the

+north of China.

+

+The foregoing are a few of the games played by the

+children in Peking. In that one city we have collected

+more than seventy-five different games, and have no reason

+to believe we have secured even a small proportion of what

+are played there. Games played in Central and South China

+are different, partly because of climatic conditions, partly

+because of the character of the people. There, as here, the

+games of children are but reproductions of the employments

+of their parents. They play at farming, carpentry, house-

+keeping, storekeeping, or whatever employments their

+parents happen to be engaged in. Indeed, in addition to

+the games common to a larger part of the country, there

+are many which are local, and depend upon the employment

+of the parents or the people.

+

+

+THE TOYS CHILDREN PLAY WITH

+

+One day while sitting at table, with our little girl, nineteen

+months old, on her mother's knee near by, we picked up

+her rubber doll and began to whip it violently. The child

+first looked frightened, then severe, then burst into tears and

+plead with her mother not to "let papa whip dolly."

+

+Few people realize how much toys become a part of the

+life of the children who play with them. They are often

+looked upon as nothing more than "playthings for children."

+This is a very narrow view of their uses and

+relationships. There is a philosophy underlying the

+production of toys as old as the world and as broad as life, a

+philosophy which, until recent years, has been little studied

+and cultivated.

+

+Playthings are as necessary a constituent of human life as

+food or medicine, and contribute in a like manner to the

+health and development of the race. Like the science of

+cooking and healing, the business of toy-making has been

+driven by the stern teacher, necessity, to a rapid

+self-development for the general good of the little men and women

+in whose interests they are made.

+

+They are the tools with which children ply their trades;

+the instruments with which they carry on their professions;

+the goods which they buy and sell in their business, and the

+paraphernalia with which they conduct their toy society.

+They are more than this. They are the animals which serve

+them, the associates who entertain them, the children who

+comfort them and bring joy to the mimic home.

+

+Toys are nature's first teachers. The child with his little

+shovels, spades and hoes, learns his first lessons in

+agriculture;  with his hammer and nails, he gets his first

+lessons in the various trades; and the bias of the life of many a

+child of larger growth has come from the toys with which he

+played. Into his flower garden the father of Linnaeus

+introduced his son during his infancy, and "this little garden

+undoubtedly created that taste in the child which afterwards

+made him the first botanist and naturalist of his age, if not

+of his race."

+

+No experiments in any chemical laboratory will excite

+more wonder or be carried on with more interest, than those

+which the boy performs with his pipe and basin of soapy

+water. The little girl's mud pies and other sham confectionery

+furnish her first lessons in the art of preparing food.

+Her toy dinners and playhouse teas offer her the first

+experiences in the entertainment of guests. With her dolls,

+the domestic relations and affections.

+

+No science has ever originatedmand been carried to any

+degree of perfection in Asia. There is no reason why this

+statement should cause the noses of Europeans and Americans

+to twitch in derision and pride, for there is another fact

+equally momentous in favor of the Asiatics,--viz., no religion

+that originated outside of Asia has ever been carried to any

+degree of perfection.

+

+The above facts will indicate that we need not hope to

+find the business of toy-making, or the science of child-

+education in a very advanced state in China--the most

+Asiatic country of Asia. Child's play and toy-making have

+been organized into a business and a science in Europe, as

+astronomy, which had been studied so long in Asia, was

+developed into a science by the Greeks. And so we find

+that what is taught in the kindergarten of the West is

+learned in the streets of the East; and the toys which are

+manufactured in great Occidental business establishments,

+are made by poor women in Oriental homes, and the same

+mistakes are made by the one as by the other.

+

+The same whistle by which the cock crows, enables the 

+dog to bark, the baby to cry, the horse to neigh, the sheep

+to bleat and the cow to low, just as in our own rubber

+goods. The same end is accomplished in the one case as in

+the other. The two, three or twenty cash doll does for the

+Chinese girl what the two, three or twenty dollar one does

+for her antipodal sister,--develops the instinct of motherhood,

+besides standing a greater amount of rough handling.

+Nevertheless it usually comes to the same deplorable end,

+departing this world, bereft of its arms and legs, without

+going through the tedious process of a surgical operation.

+

+Chinese toys are less varied, less complicated, less true to

+the original, and less expensive than those of the West,--

+more perhaps like the toys of a century or two ago. Nevertheless

+they are toys, and in the hands of boys and girls,

+the drum goes "rub-a-dub," the horn "toots," and the

+whistle squeaks. The "gingham dog and calico cat," besides

+a score of other animals more nearly related to the soil

+of their native place--being made of clay--express themselves

+in the language of the particular whistle which happens

+to have been placed within them. All this is to the

+entire satisfaction of "little Miss Muffet" and "little boy

+Blue," just as they do in other lands.

+

+When the children grow older they have tops to spin that

+whistle as good a whistle, and buzzers to buzz that buzz as

+good a buzz, and music balls to roll, and music carts to pull,

+that emit sounds as much to their satisfaction, as anything

+that ministered to the childish tastes of our grandfathers;

+and these become as much a part of their business and their

+life as if they were living, talking beings. Furthermore,

+their dolls are as much their children as they themselves are

+the offspring of their parents.

+

+Chinese toys embrace only those which involve no intricate

+scientific principles. The music boxes of the West are

+unknown in China except as they are imported. The

+Chinese know nothing about dolls which open and shut

+their eyes, simple as this principle is, nor of toys which are

+self-propelling by some mysterious spring secreted within,

+because, forsooth, they know nothing about making the spring.

+

+There are some principles, however, which, though they

+may not understand, they are nevertheless able to utilize;

+such, for instance, as the expansion of air by heat, and the

+creation of air currents. This principle is utilized in

+lanterns. In the top of these is a paper wheel attached to a

+cross-bar on the ends of which are suspended paper men

+and women together with animals of all kinds making a

+very interesting merry-go-round. These lantern-figures

+correspond to the sawyers, borers, blacksmiths, washers

+and others which twenty or more years ago were on top of

+the stove of every corner grocery or country post-office.

+

+When we began the study of Chinese toys our first move

+was to call in a Chinese friend whom we thought we could

+trust, and who could buy toys at a very reasonable rate,

+and sent him out to purchase specimens of every variety of

+toys he could find in the city of Peking. We ordered him

+the first day to buy nothing but rattles, because the rattle

+is the first toy that attracts the attention of the child.

+

+In the evening Mr. Hsin returned with a good-sized

+basket full of rattles. Some were tin in the form of small

+cylinders, with handles in which were small pebbles: others

+were shaped like pails; and others like cooking pots and pans.

+

+

+Some of the most attractive were hollow wood balls,

+baskets, pails and bottles, gorgeously painted, with long

+handles, necks, or bails. The paint was soon transferred

+from the face of the toy to that of the first child that

+happened to play with it, which child was of course, our own

+little girl.

+

+The most common rattles representing various kinds of

+fowls and animals known and unknown are made of clay.

+Others are in the form of fat little priests that make one

+think of Santa Claus, or little roly-poly children that look

+like the little folks who play with them.

+

+As the child grows larger the favorite rattle is a drum-

+shaped piece of bamboo or other wood, with skin--not

+infrequently fish skin, stretched over the two ends, and a long

+handle attached. On the sides are two stout strings with

+beads on the ends, which, when the rattle is turned in the

+hand, strike on the drum heads. These rattles of brass or

+tin as well as bamboo, are in imitation of those carried by

+street hawkers.

+

+We said to Mr. Hsin, "Foreigners say the Chinese do not

+have dolls, how is that?"

+

+"They have lots of them," he answered in the stereotyped way.

+

+"Then to-morrow buy samples of all the dolls you can find."

+

+"All?" he asked with some surprise.

+

+"Yes, all. We want to know just what kind of dolls they have."

+

+The next evening Mr. Hsin came in with an immense

+load of dolls. He had large, small, and middle sized rag dolls,

+on which the nose was sewed, the ears pasted, and the

+eyes and other features painted. They were rude, but as

+interesting to children as other more natural and more

+expensive ones, as we discovered by giving one of them to

+our little girl. In not a few instances Western children

+have become much more firmly attached to their Chinese

+cloth dolls than any that can be found for them in America

+or Europe.

+

+He had a number of others both large and small with

+paper mache heads, leather bodies, and clay arms and legs.

+The body was like a bellows in which a reed whistle was

+placed, that enabled the baby to cry in the same tone as the

+toy dog barks or the cock crows. They had "real hair" in

+spots on their head similar to those on the child, and they

+were dressed in the same kind of clothing as that used on the

+baby in summer-time, viz., a chest-protector and a pair of

+shoes or trousers.

+

+Mr. Hsin then took out a small package in which was

+wrapped a half-dozen or more "little people," as they are

+called, by the Chinese, with paper heads, hands and feet,

+exquisitely painted, and their clothing of the finest silk.

+Attached to the head of each was a silk string by which the

+"little people" are hung upon the wall as a decoration.

+

+"But what are these, Mr. Hsin?" we asked. "These are not dolls."

+

+"No," he answered, "these are cloth animals. The children play

+with these at the same time they play with dolls."

+

+He had gone beyond our instructions. He had brought

+us a large collection of camels made of cloth the color of

+the camel's skin, with little bunches of hair on the head,

+neck, hump and the joints of the legs, similar to those on the

+camel when it is shedding its coat in the springtime. He had

+elephants made of a grayish kind of cloth on which were

+harnesses similar to those supposed to be necessary for those

+animals. He had bears with bits of hair on neck and tail

+and a leading string in the nose; horses painted with spots

+of white and red, matched only by the most remarkable

+animals in a circus; monkeys with black beads for eyes, and

+long tails; lions, tigers, and leopards, with large, savage,

+black, glass eyes, with manes or tails suited to each, and

+properly crooked by a wire extending to the tip. And

+finally he laid the bogi-boo, a nondescript with a head on

+each end much like the head of a lion or tiger. When not

+used as a plaything, this served the purpose of a pillow.

+

+"Do the Chinese have no other kinds of toy animals?" we inquired.

+

+"Yes," he answered, "I'll bring them to-morrow."

+

+The following evening he brought us a collection of clay

+toys too extensive to enumerate. There were horses, cows,

+camels, mules, deer, and a host of others the original of which

+has never been found except in the imagination of the people.

+He had women riding donkeys followed by drivers, men riding

+horses and shooting or throwing a spear at a fleeing tiger, and

+women with babies in their arms while grandmother amused them

+with rattles, and father lay near by smoking an opium pipe.

+

+From the bottom of his basket he brought forth a nuber of small

+packages.

+

+"What are in those?"

+

+"These are clay insects."

+

+They were among the best clay work we have seen in

+China. There were tumble-bugs, grasshoppers, large beetles,

+mantis, praying mantis, toads and scorpions, together with others

+never seen outside of China, and some never seen at all, the legs

+and feelers all being made of wire.

+

+In another package he had a dozen dancing dolls. They

+were made of clay, were an inch and a half long, dressed

+with paper, and had small wires protruding the sixteenth of

+an inch below the bottom of the skirt. He put them all on

+a brass tray, the edge of which he struck with a small stick

+to make it vibrate, thus causing the dancers to turn round

+and round in every direction.

+

+The next package contained a number of clay beggars.

+Two were fighting, one about to smash his clay pot over

+the other's head: another had his pot on his head for a lark,

+a third was eating from his, while others were carrying theirs

+in their hand. One had a sore leg to which he called attention

+with open mouth and pain expressed in every feature.

+

+From another package he brought out a number of

+jumping jacks, imitations as it seemed of things Japanese.

+There were monkey acrobats made of clay, wire and skin,

+fastened to a small slip of bamboo. A doll fastened to a

+stick, with cymbals in its hands would clash the cymbals,

+when its queue was pulled. Finally there was a large

+dragon which satisfied its raging appetite by feeding upon

+two or three little clay men specially prepared for his

+consumption.

+

+But, perhaps, among the most interesting of his toys were his

+clay whistles. Some of these burnt or sun-dried toys were

+hollow and in the shape of birds, beasts and insects. When blown

+into, they would emit the shrillest kind of a whistle. In others

+a reed whistle had been placed similar to those in the dolls, and

+these usually had a bellows to blow them. Whether cock or hen,

+dog or child, they all crowed, barked, cackled, or cried in the

+self-same tone.

+

+"What will you get to-morrow?"

+

+"Drums, knives, and tops," said Mr. Hsin. He was being paid by

+the day for spending our money, and so had his plans well laid.

+

+The following evening he brought a large collection of toy drums,

+some of which were in the shape of a barrel, both in their length

+and in being bulged out at the middle. On the ends were painted

+gay pictures of men and women clad in battle-array or festive

+garments, making the drum a work of art as well as an instrument

+of torture to those who are disturbed by noises about the house.

+

+He had large knives covered with bright paint which could easily

+be washed off, and tridents, with loose plates or cymbals, which

+make a noise to frighten the enemy.

+

+The tops Mr. Hsin had collected were by far the most interesting.

+Chinese tops are second to none made. They are simple, being made

+of bamboo, are spun with a string, and when properly operated

+emit a shrill whistle.

+

+The ice top, without a stem, and simply a block of wood in shape

+of a top, is spun with a string, but is kept going by whipping.

+

+Another toy which foreigners call a top is entirely different

+from anything we see in the West. The Chinese call it

+a K'ung chung, while the top is called t'o lo. It is

+constructed of two pieces of bamboo, each of which is made

+like a top, and then joined by a carefully turned axle, each

+end being of equal weight, and looking not unlike the

+wheels of a cart. It is then spun by a string, which is

+wound once around the axle and attached to two sticks.

+A good performer is able to spin it in a great variety of

+ways, tossing it under and over his foot, spinning it with

+the sticks behind him, and at times throwing it up into the

+air twenty or thirty feet and catching it as it comes down.

+The principle upon which it is operated is the quick jerking

+of one of the sticks while the other is allowed to be loose.

+

+"To-morrow," said Mr. Hsin, as he ceased spinning the top, "I

+will get you some toy carts."

+

+The Chinese cart has been described as a Saratoga trunk

+on two wheels. This is, however, only one form--that of

+the passenger cart. There are many others, and all of them

+are used as patterns of toy carts. They all have a kind of

+music-box attachment, operated by the turning of the axle

+to which the wheels of the toys, as well as those of some of

+the real carts, are fixed.

+

+The toy carts are made of tin, wood and clay. Some of

+them are very simple, having paper covers, while others

+possess the whole paraphernalia of the street carts. When

+the mule of the toy cart is unhitched and unharnessed, he

+looks like a very respectable mule. Nevertheless, instead of

+devouring food, he becomes the prey of insects. Usually

+he appears the second season, if he lasts that long, bereft of

+mane and tail, as well as a large portion of his skin.

+

+The flat carts have a revolving peg sticking up through

+the centre, on which a small clay image is placed which

+turns with the stick. Others are placed on wires on the

+two sides, to represent the driver and the passengers.

+

+These in Peking are the omnibus carts. Running from the east gate

+of the Imperial city to the front gate, and in other parts of the

+city as well, there are street carts corresponding to the omnibus

+or street cars of the West. These start at intervals of ten

+minutes, more or less, with eight or ten persons on a cart, the

+fare being only a few cash. Toy carts of this kind have six or

+eight clay images to represent the passengers.

+

+Mr. Hsin brought out from the bottom of his basket a

+number of neatly made little pug dogs, and pressing upon a

+bellows in their body caused them to bark, just as the hen

+cackled a few days before.

+

+What we have described formed only a small portion of

+the toys Mr. Hsin brought. Cheap clay toys of all kinds

+are hawked about the street by a man who sells them at a

+fifth or a tenth of a cent apiece. With him is often found

+a candy-blower, who with a reed and a bowl of taffy-

+candy is ready to blow a man, a chicken, a horse and cart,

+a corn ear, or anything else the child wants, as a glass-

+blower would blow a bottle or a lamp chimney. The child

+plays with his prize until he tires of it and then he eats it.

+

+

+BLOCK GAMES--KINDERGARTEN

+

+It was on a bright spring afternoon that a Chinese official and

+his little boy called at our home on Filial Piety Lane, in

+Peking.

+

+The dresses of father and child were exactly alike--as

+though they had been twins, boots of black velvet or satin,

+blue silk trousers, a long blue silk garment, a waistcoat of

+blue brocade, and a black satin skullcap--the child was in

+every respect, even to the dignity of his bearing, a vest-

+pocket edition of his father.

+

+He had a T'ao of books which I recognized as the Fifteen

+Magic Blocks, one of the most ingenious, if not the most

+remarkable, books I have ever seen.

+

+A T'ao is two or any number of volumes of a book wrapped in a

+single cover. In this case it was two volumes. In the inside of

+the cover there was a depression three inches square in which was

+kept a piece of lead, wood or pasteboard, divided into fifteen

+pieces as in the following illustration.

+

+These blocks are all in pairs except one, which is a rhomboid.

+They are all exactly proportional, having their sides either

+half-inch, inch, inch and a half, or two inches in length.

+

+They are not used as are the blocks in our kindergarten

+simply to make geometrical figures, but rather to illustrate

+such facts of history as will have a moral influence, or be an

+intellectual stimulus to the child.

+

+He may build houses with them, or make such ancient or

+modern ornaments, or household utensils, as may suit his

+fancy; but the primary object of the blocks and the books,

+is to impress upon the child's mind, in the most forcible

+way possible, the leading facts of history, poetry, mythology

+or morals; while the houses, boats and other things are

+simply side issues.

+

+The first illustration the child constructed for me, for I

+desired him to teach me how it was done, was a dragon horse, and

+when I asked him to explain it, he said that it represented the

+animal seen by Fu Hsi, the original ancestor of the Chinese

+people, emerging from the Meng river, bearing upon its back a map

+on which were fifty-five spots, representing the male and female

+principles of nature, and which the sage used to construct what

+are called the eight diagrams.

+

+The child tossed the blocks off into a pile and then constructed

+a tortoise which he said was seen by Yu, the Chinese Noah, coming

+out of the Lo river, while he was draining off the floods. On its

+back was a design which he used as a pattern for the nine

+divisions of his empire.

+

+These two incidents are referred to by Confucius, and are among

+the first learned by every Chinese child.

+

+I looked through the book and noticed that many of the

+designs were for the amusement of the children, as well

+as to develop their ingenuity. In the two volumes of the

+T'ao he had only the outlines of the pictures which he

+readily constructed with the blocks. But he had with him

+also a small volume which was a key to the designs having

+lines indicating how each block was placed. This he had

+purchased for a few cash. Much of the interest of the book,

+however, attached to the puzzling character of the pictures.

+

+There was one with a verse attached somewhat like the following:

+

+ The old wife drew a chess-board

+     On the cover of a book,

+ While the child transformed a needle

+     Into a fishing-hook.

+

+Chinese literature is full of examples of men and women

+who applied themselves to their books with untiring

+diligence. Some tied their hair to the beam of their humble

+cottage so that when they nodded with sleepiness the jerk

+would awake them and they might return to their books.

+

+Others slept upon globular pillows that when they

+became so restless as to move and cause the pillow to roll

+from under their head they might get up and study.

+

+The child once more took the blocks and illustrated how one who

+was so poor as to be unable to furnish himself with candles,

+confined a fire-fly in a gauze lantern using that instead of a

+lamp. At the same time he explained that another who was perhaps

+not able to afford the gauze lantern, studied by the light of a

+glowworm.

+

+"K'ang Heng," said the child, as he put the blocks together in a

+new form, "had a still better way, as well as more economical.

+His house was built of clay, and as the window of his neighbor's

+house was immediately opposite, he chiseled a hole through his

+wall and thus took advantage of his neighbor's light.

+

+"Sun K'ang's method was very good for winter," continued the

+child as he rearranged the blocks, "but I do not know what he

+would do in summer. He studied by the light reflected from the

+snow.

+

+"Perhaps," he went on as he changed the form, "he followed

+the example of another who studied by the pale light of the

+moon."

+

+"What does that represent?" I asked him pointing to a child with

+a bowl in his hand who looked as if he might have been going to

+the grocer's.

+

+"Oh, that boy is going to buy wine."

+

+The Chinese have never yet realized what a national evil

+liquor may become. They have little wine shops in the

+great cities, but they have no drinking houses corresponding

+to the saloon, and it is not uncommon to see a child going

+to the wine shop to fetch a bowl of wine. The Buddhist

+priest indulges with the same moderation as the official class

+or gentry. Indeed most of the drunkenness we read about

+in Chinese books is that of poets and philosophers, and in

+them it is, if not commended, at least not condemned.

+The attitude of literature towards them is much like that of

+Thackeray towards the gentlemen of his day.

+

+The child constructed the picture of a Buddhist priest, who, with

+staff in hand, and a mug of wine, was viewing the beautiful

+mountains in the distance. He then changed it to one in which an

+intoxicated man was leaning on a boy's shoulder, the inscription

+to which said: "Any one is willing to assist a drunken man to

+return home."

+

+"This," he went on as he changed his blocks, "is a picture of Li

+Pei, China's greatest poet. He lived more than a thousand years

+ago. This represents the closing scene in his life. He was

+crossing the river in a boat, and in a drunken effort to

+get the moon's reflection from the water, he fell overboard

+and was drowned." The child pointed to the sail at the

+same time, repeating the following:

+

+     The sail being set,

+          He tried to get,

+     The moon from out the main.

+

+I noticed a large number of boat scenes and induced the

+child to construct some of them for me, which he was quite

+willing to do, explaining them as he went as readily as our

+children would explain Old Mother Hubbard or the Old

+Woman who Lived in her Shoe, by seeing the illustrations.

+

+Constructing one he repeated a verse somewhat like the following:

+

+     Alone the fisherman sat,

+          In his boat by the river's brink,

+     In the chill and cold and snow,

+          To fish, and fish, and think.

+

+Then he turned over to two on opposite pages, and as he

+constructed them he repeated in turn:

+

+     In a stream ten thousand li in length

+          He bathes his feet at night,

+

+

+     While on a mount he waves his arms,

+          Ten thousand feet in height.

+

+

+The ten thousand li in one couplet corresponds to the

+ten thousand feet in the other, while the bathing of the

+feet corresponds to the waving of the arms. Couplets of

+this kind are always attractive to the Chinese child as well

+as to the scholar, and poems and essays are replete with

+such constructions.

+

+The child enjoyed making the pictures. I tried to make

+one, but found it very difficult. I was not familiar with the

+blocks. It is different now, I have learned how to make

+them. Then it seemed as if it would be impossible ever to

+do so. When I had failed to make the picture I turned them

+over to him. In a moment it was done.

+

+"Who is it?" I asked.

+

+"Chang Ch'i, the poet," he answered. "Whenever he went for a walk

+he took with him a child who carried a bag in which to put the

+poems he happened to write. In this illustration he stands with

+his head bent forward and his hands behind his back lost in

+thought, while the lad stands near with the bag."

+

+We have given in another chapter the story of the great

+traveller, Chang Ch'ien, and his search for the source of the

+Yellow River.

+

+In one of the illustrations the child represented him in his boat

+in a way not very different from that of the artist.

+

+Another quotation from one of the poets was illustrated as

+follows:

+

+     Last night a meeting I arranged,

+          Ere I my lamp did light,

+     Nor while I crossed the ferry feared,

+          Or wind or rain or night.

+

+The child's eyes sparkled as he turned to some of those

+illustrating children at play, and as he constructed one which

+represents two children swinging their arms and running,

+he repeated:

+

+     See the children at their 

+                play,

+     Gathering flowers by the

+                way.

+

+"They are gathering pussy-willows," he added.

+

+In another he represented a child standing before the

+front gate, where he had knocked in vain to gain admission.

+As he completed it he said, pointing to the apricot

+over the door:

+

+     Ten times he knocked upon the gate,

+          But nine, they opened not,

+     Above the wall he plainly saw,

+          A ripe, red apricot.

+

+He continued to represent quotations from the poets and explain

+them as he went along.

+

+There was one which indicated that some one was ascending

+the steps to the jade platform on which the dust had settled

+as it does on everything in Peking; at the same time the

+verse told us that

+

+     Step by step we reach the platform,

+          All of jade of purest green,

+     Call a child to come and sweep it,

+          But he cannot sweep it clean.

+

+"You know," he went on, "the cottages of many of the

+poets were near the beautiful lakes in central China, in the

+wild heights of the mountains, or upon the banks of some

+flowing stream. In this one the pavilion of the poet is on

+the bank of the river, and we are told that,

+

+      In his cottage sat the poet

+          Thinking, as the moon went by,

+     That the moonlight on the water,

+          Made the water like the sky."

+

+Changing it somewhat he made a cottage of a different kind. This

+was not made for the picture's sake, but to illustrate a sentence

+it was designed to impress upon the child's mind. The quotation

+is somewhat as follows:

+

+     The ringing of the evening bells,

+          The moon a crescent splendid,

+     The rustling of the swallow's wings

+          Betoken winter ended.

+

+The child looked up at me significantly as he turned to

+one which represented a Buddhist priest. I expected something of

+a joke at the priest's expense as in the nursery rhymes and

+games, but there was none. That would injure the sale of the

+book. The inscription told us that "a Buddhist lantern will

+reflect light enough to illuminate the whole universe."

+

+Turning to the next page we found a priest sitting in

+front of the temple in the act of beating his wooden drum,

+while the poet exclaims:

+

+     O crystal pool and silvery moon,

+          So clear and pure thou art,

+     There's nought to which thou wilt compare

+          Except a Buddha's heart.

+

+The child next directed our attention to various kinds of

+flowers, more especially the marigold. A man in a boat rows with

+one hand while he points backward to the blossoming marigold,

+while in another picture the poet tells us that,

+

+     Along the eastern wall,

+          We pluck the marigold,

+     While on the south horizon,

+          The mountain we behold.

+

+"What is that?" I asked as he turned to a picture of an old man

+riding on a cow.

+

+"That is Laotze, the founder of Taoism, crossing the frontier at

+the Han Ku Pass between Shansi and Shensi, riding upon a cow.

+Nobody knows where he went."

+

+There were other pictures of Taoist patriarchs keeping sheep. By

+their magic power they turned the sheep into stones when they

+were tired watching them, and again the inscriptions told us,

+"the stones became sheep at his call." Still others represented

+them in search of the elixir of life, while in others they

+were riding on a snail.

+

+The object of thus bringing in incidents from all these

+Buddhist, Taoist, Confucian, and other sources is that by

+catering to all classes the book may have wide distribution, and

+whatever the Confucianist may say, it must be admitted that the

+other religions have a strong hold upon the popular mind.

+

+The last twenty-six illustrations in Vol. I represent various

+incidents in the life, history and employments of women.

+

+The first of these is an ancient empress "weaving at night by her

+palace window."

+

+Another represents a woman in her boat and we are told that,

+"leaving her oar she leisurely sang a song entitled, 'Plucking

+the Caltrops.' "

+

+Another represents a woman "wearing a pomegranate-colored 

+dress riding a pear-blossom colored horse." A peculiar

+combination to say the least.

+

+The fisherman's wife is represented in her boat, "making her 

+toilet at dawn using the water as a mirror." While we are assured

+also that the woman sitting upon her veranda "finds it very

+difficult to thread her needle by the pale light of the moon,"

+which fact, few, I think, would question.

+

+In one of the pictures "a beautiful maiden, in the bright

+moonlight, came beneath the trees." This is evidently contrary to

+Chinese ideas of propriety, for the Classic for girls tells us

+that a maiden should not go out at night except in company with a

+servant bearing a lantern. As it was bright moonlight, however,

+let us hope she was excusable.

+

+This sauntering about in the court is not uncommon if we believe

+what the books say, for in the next picture we are told that:

+

+     As near the middle summer-house,

+          The maiden sauntered by,

+     Upon the jade pin in her hair

+          There lit a dragon-fly.

+

+The next illustration represented the wife of the famous poet

+Ssu-Ma Hsiang-Ju in her husband's wine shop.

+

+This poet fell in love with the widowed daughter of a wealthy

+merchant, the result of which was that the young couple eloped

+and were married; and as the daughter was disinherited by her

+irate parent, she was compelled to wait on customers in her

+husband's wine shop, which she did without complaint. In spite of

+their imprudent conduct, and for the time, its unhappy results,

+as soon as the poet had become so famous as to be summoned to

+court, the stern father relented, and, as it was a case of

+undoubted affection, which the Chinese readily appreciate they

+have always had the sympathy of the whole Chinese people.

+

+One of the most popular women in Chinese history is Mu Lan, the

+A Chinese Joan of Arc. Her father, a great general, being too old

+to take charge of his troops, and her brothers too young, she

+dressed herself in boy's clothing, enrolled herself in the army,

+mounted her father's trusty steed, and led his soldiers to

+battle, thus bringing honor to herself and renown upon her

+family.

+

+We have already seen how diligent some of the ancient worthies

+were in their study. This, however, is not universal, for we are

+told the mother of Liu Kung-cho, in order to stimulate her son to

+study took pills made of bear's gall and bitter herbs, to show

+her sympathy with her boy and lead him to feel that she was

+willing to endure bitterness as well as he.

+

+The last of these examples of noble women is that of the wife of

+Liang Hung, a poor philosopher of some two thousand years ago. An

+effort was made to engage him to Meng Kuang, the daughter of a

+rich family, whose lack of beauty was more than balanced by her

+remarkable intelligence. The old philosopher feared that family

+pride might cause domestic infelicity. The girl on her part

+steadfastly refused to marry any one else, declaring that unless

+she married Liang Hung, she would not marry at all. This

+unexpected constancy touched the old man's heart and he married

+her. She dressed in the most common clothing, always prepared 

+his food with her own hand, and to show her affection and

+respect never presented him with the rice-bowl without raising it

+to the level of her eyebrows, as in the illustration.

+

+It may be interesting to see some of the ornaments and

+utensils the child made with his blocks. I shall therefore

+add three, a pair of scissors, a teapot, and a seal with a

+turtle handle.

+

+Such is in general the character of the book the official's

+little boy had with him. I afterwards secured several copies

+for myself and learned to make all the pictures first shown

+me by the child, and I discovered that it is but one of

+several forms of what we may call kindergarten work, that

+it has gone through many editions, and is very widely

+distributed. My own set contains 216 illustrations such as I

+have given.

+

+

+CHILDREN'S SHOWS AND ENTERTAINMENTS

+

+My little girl came running into my study greatly excited

+and exclaiming:

+

+"Papa, the monkey show, the monkey show. We want the monkey show,

+may we have it?"

+

+Now if you had but one little girl, and she wanted a monkey show

+to come into your own court and perform for her and her little

+friends for half an hour, the cost of which was the modest sum of

+five cents, what would you do?

+

+You would do as I did, no doubt, go out with the little girl,

+call in the passing showman and allow him to perform, which would

+serve the triple purpose of furnishing relaxation and instruction

+for yourself, entertainment for the children, and business for

+the showman.

+

+This however proved to be not the monkey show but Punch and Judy,

+a species of entertainment for children, the exact counterpart of

+our own entertainment of that name. It may be of interest to

+young readers to know how this show originated, and I doubt not

+it will be a surprise to some older ones to know that it dates

+back to about the year 1000 B. C.

+

+We are told that while the Emperor Mu of the Chou dynasty was

+making a tour of his empire, a skillful mechanic, Yen Shih by

+name, was brought into his presence and entertained him and the

+women of his seraglio with a dance performed by automaton

+figures, which were capable not only of rhythmical movements of

+their limbs, but of accompanying their movements with songs.

+

+During and at the close of the performance, the puppets cast such

+significant glances at the ladies as to anger the monarch, and he

+ordered the execution of the originator of the play.

+

+The mechanic however ripped open the puppets, and proved to his

+astonished majesty that they were only artificial objects, and

+instead of being executed he was allowed to repeat his

+performance. This was the origin of the play in China which

+corresponds to Punch and Judy in Europe and America.

+

+To the question which naturally arises as to how the play was

+carried to the West, I reply, it may not have been carried to

+Europe at all, but have originated there. From marked

+similarities in the two plays however, and more especially in the

+methods of their production, we may suppose that the Chinese

+Punch and Judy was carried to Europe in the following way:

+

+Among the many traders who visited Central Asia while it was

+under the government of the family of Genghis Khan, were two

+Venetian brothers, Maffeo and Nicolo Polo, whose wondering

+disposition and trading interests led them as far as the court of

+the Great Khan, where they remained in the most intimate

+relations with Kublai for some time, and were finally sent back

+to Italy with a request that one hundred European scholars be

+sent to China to instruct them in the arts of Europe.

+

+This request was never carried out, but the two returned

+to the Khan's court with young Marco, the son of one of

+them, who remained with the Mongol Emperor for seventeen years,

+during which time he had a better opportunity of observing their

+customs than perhaps any other foreigner since his time. His

+final return to Italy was in 1295, and a year or two later, he

+wrote and revised his book of travels.

+

+The art of printing in Europe was discovered in 1438, and the

+first edition of Marco Polo's travels was printed about 1550-59.

+Our Punch and Judy was invented by Silvio Fiorillo an Italian

+dramatist before the year 1600. I have found no reference to the

+play in Marco Polo's works, nevertheless, one cannot but think

+that, if not a written, at least an oral, communication of the

+play may have been carried to Europe by him or some other of the

+Italian traders or travellers. The two plays are very similar,

+even to the tones of the man who works the puppets.

+

+In passing the school court on one occasion I saw the

+students gathered in a crowd under the shade of the trees.

+A small tent was pitched, on the front of which was a little

+stage. A manager stood behind the screen from which

+position he worked a number of puppets in the form of

+men, women, children, horses and dragons. These were

+suspended by black threads as I afterwards discovered from

+small sticks or a framework which the manager manipulated

+behind the screen. When one finished its part of the

+performance, it either walked off the stage, or the stick was

+fastened in such a way as to leave it in a position conducive

+to the amusement of the crowd. These were puppet shows, and were

+put through entire performances or plays, the manager doing the

+talking as in Punch and Judy.

+

+After the performance several of the students passed around the

+hat, each person present giving one-fifth or one-tenth of a cent.

+

+As I came from school one afternoon, the children had called in

+from the street a showman with a number of trained mice. He had

+erected a little scaffolding just inside the gateway, at one side

+of which there was a small rope ladder, and this with the

+inevitable gong, and the small boxes in which the mice were kept

+constituted his entire outfit.

+

+In the boxes he had what seemed to be cotton from the milk-weed

+which furnished a nest for the mice. These he took from their

+little boxes one by one, stroked them tenderly, while he

+explained what this particular mouse would do, put each one on

+the rope ladder, which they ascended, and performed the tricks

+expected of them. These were going through a pagoda, drawing

+water, creeping through a tube, wearing a criminal's collar,

+turning a tread-mill, or working some other equally simple trick.

+

+At times the mice had to be directed by a small stick in the

+hands of the manager, but they were carefully trained, kindly

+treated, and much appreciated by the children.

+

+Although less attractive, there is no other show which impresses

+itself so forcibly on the child's mind as the monkey, dog and

+sheep show.

+

+The dog was the first to perform. Four hoops were placed on the

+corners of a square, ten feet apart. The dog walked around

+through these hoops, first through each in order, then turning

+went through each twice, then through one and retracing his steps

+went through the one last passed through.

+

+The showman drove an iron peg in the ground on which were two

+blocks representing millstones. To the upper one was a lever by

+which the dog with his nose turned the top millstone as if

+grinding flour. He was hitched to a wheelbarrow, the handles of

+which were held by the monkey, who pushed while the dog pulled.

+

+The most interesting part of the performance, however, was by the

+monkey. Various kinds of hats and false faces were kept in a box

+which he opened and secured. He stalked about with a cane in his

+hand, or crosswise back of his neck, turned handsprings, went

+through various trapeze performances, such as hanging by his

+legs, tail, chin, and hands, or was whirled around in the air.

+

+The leading strap of the monkey was finally tied to the belt of

+the sheep which was led away to some distance and let go. The

+monkey bounded upon its back and held fast to the wool, while the

+sheep ran with all its speed to the showman, who held a basin of

+broom-corn seed as a bait. This was repeated as often as the

+children desired, which ended the show. Time,--half an hour;

+spectators,--all who desired to witness it; price,--five cents.

+

+The showmen in China are somewhat like the tramps and beggars in

+other countries. When they find a place where there are children

+who enjoy shows, each tells the other, and they all call around

+in turn.

+

+Our next show was an exhibition given by a man with a trained

+bear.

+

+The animal had two rings in his nose, to one of which was

+fastened a leading string or strap, and to the other, while

+performing, a large chain. A man stood on one end of the chain,

+and the manager, with a long-handled ladle, or with his hand,

+gave the bear small pieces of bread or other food after each

+trick he performed.

+

+The first trick was walking on his hind feet as if dancing. But

+more amusing than this to the children was to see him turn

+summersaults both forward and backward. These were repeated

+several times because they were easily done, and added to the

+length of time the show continued.

+

+Children, however, begin to appreciate at an early age what

+is difficult and what easy, and it was not until he took a

+carrying-pole six feet long, put the middle of it upon his

+forehead and set it whirling with his paws, that they began to

+say:

+

+"That's good," "That's hard to do," and other expressions

+of a like nature.

+

+They enjoyed seeing him stand on his front feet, or on his

+head with his hind feet kicking the air, but they enjoyed

+still more seeing him put on the wooden collar of a convict

+and twirl it around his neck. The manager gave him some

+bread and then tried to induce him to take it off, but he

+whined for more bread and refused to do so. Finally he

+took off the collar, and when they tried to take it from him

+he put it on again. When he took it off the next time and

+offered it to them they refused to receive it, but tried to get

+him to put it on, which he stubbornly refused to do, and

+finally threw it away.

+

+His last trick was to sit down upon his haunches, stick up one of

+his hind feet, and twirl a knife six feet long upon it as he had

+twirled the carrying-pole upon his head. The manager said he

+would wrestle with the men, but this was a side issue and only

+done when extra money was added to the regular price, which was

+twelve cents.

+

+One of the most common showmen seen on the streets of Peking,

+goes about with a framework upon his shoulder in the shape of a

+sled, the runners of which are turned up at both ends. It seemed

+to me to be less interesting than the other shows, but as it is

+more common, the children probably look upon it with more favor,

+and the children are the final critics of all things for the

+little ones.

+

+The show was given by a man and two boys, one of whom

+impersonated a girl. Small feet, like the bound feet of a girl,

+were strapped on like stilts, his own being covered by wide

+trousers, and he and the boy sang songs and danced to the music

+of the drum and cymbals in the hands of the showman.

+

+The second part of the performance was a boat ride on dry land.

+The girl got into the frame, let down around it a piece of cloth

+which was fastened to the top, and took hold of the frame in such

+a way as to carry it easily. The boy, with a long stick, pushed

+as if starting the boat, and then pulled as if rowing, and with

+every pull of the oar, the girl ran a few steps, making it appear

+that the boat shot forward. All the while the boy sang a

+boat-song or a love-ditty to his sweetheart.

+

+Again the scene changed. The head and hind parts of a papier

+mache horse were fastened to the "tomboy" in such a way as to

+make it appear that she was riding; a cloth was let down to hide

+her feet, and they ran to and fro, one in one direction and the

+other in the other, she jerking her unmanageable steed, and he

+singing songs, and all to the music of the drum and the cymbals.

+

+It sometimes happens that while the girl rides the horse, the boy

+goes beside her in the boat, the rapidity and character of their

+movements being governed by the music of the manager.

+

+The best part of the whole performance was that which goes by the

+name of the lion show. The girl took off her small feet and

+girl's clothes and became a boy again. One of the boys stood up

+in front and put on an apron of woven grass, while the other bent

+forward and clutched hold of his belt. A large papier mache head

+of a lion was put on the front boy, to which was attached a

+covering of woven grass large enough to cover them both, while a

+long tail of the same material was stuck into a framework

+fastened to the belt of the hinder boy.

+

+The manager beat the drum, the lion stalked about the court,

+keeping step to the music, turning its large head in every

+direction and opening and shutting its mouth, much to the

+amusement of the children.

+

+There is probably no country in the world that has more

+travelling shows specially prepared for the entertainment of

+children than China. Scarcely a day passes that we do not hear

+the drum or the gong of the showmen going to and fro, or standing

+at our court gate waiting to be called in.

+

+

+JUVENILE JUGGLING

+

+"How is that?"

+

+"Very good."

+

+"Can you do it?" asked the sleight-of-hand performer, as he

+rolled a little red ball between his finger and thumb, pitched it

+up, caught it as it came down, half closed his hand and blew into

+it, opened his hand and the ball had disappeared.

+

+He picked up another ball, tossed it up, caught it in his

+mouth, dropped it into his hand, and it mysteriously disappeared.

+

+The juggler was seated on the ground with a piece of blue cloth

+spread out before him, on which were three cups, and five little

+red wax balls nearly as large as cranberries.

+

+He continued to toss the wax balls about until they had all

+disappeared. We watched him closely, but could not discover where

+they had gone. He then arose, took a small portion of my coat

+sleeve between his thumb and finger, began rubbing them together,

+and by and by, one of the balls appeared between his digits. He

+picked at a small boy's ear and got another of the balls. He blew

+his nose and another dropped upon the cloth. He slapped the top

+of his head and one dropped out of his mouth, and he took the

+fifth from a boy's hair.

+

+He then changed his method. He placed the cups' mouths down upon

+the cloth, and under one of them put the five little balls. When

+he placed the cup we watched carefully; there were no balls under

+it. When he raised it up, behold, there were the five little

+balls.

+

+He removed the cups from one place to another, and asked us to

+guess which cup the balls were under, but we were always wrong.

+

+There was a large company of us, ranging from children of three

+to old men and women of seventy-five, and from Chinese schoolboys

+to a bishop of the church, but none of us could discover how he

+did it.

+

+Later, however, I learned how the trick was performed. As he

+raised the cup with his thumb and forefinger, he inserted two

+other fingers under, gathered up all the balls between them and

+placed them under the cup as he put it down. While in making the

+balls disappear, he concealed them either in his mouth or between

+his fingers.

+

+The Chinese have a saying:

+

+     In selecting his balls from north to south,

+     The magician cannot leave his mouth;

+     And in rolling his balls, you understand,

+     He must have them hidden in his hand.

+

+Of quite a different character are the jugglers with plates

+and bowls. Not only children, but many of a larger growth

+delight to watch these. Our only way of learning about them was

+to call them into our court as the Chinese call them to theirs,

+and that is what we did.

+

+The performer first put a plate on the top of a trident and

+set it whirling. In this whirling condition he put the trident

+on his forehead where he balanced it, the trident whirling

+with the plate as though boring into his skull.

+

+He next took a bamboo pole six feet long, with a nail in

+the end on which he set the plate whirling. The plate, of

+course, had a small indentation to keep it in its place on the

+nail. He raised the plate in the air and inserted into the

+first pole another of equal length, then another and still

+another, which put the plate whirling in the air thirty feet

+high.

+

+Thus whirling he balanced it on his hand, on his arm, on his

+thumb, on his forehead, and finally in his mouth, after which he

+tossed the plate up, threw the pole aside and caught it as it

+came down. The old manager standing by received the pole, but as

+he saw the plate tossed up, he fell flat upon the earth,

+screaming lest the plate be broken.

+

+This same performer set a bowl whirling on the end of a

+chop-stick. Then tossing the bowl up he caught it inverted

+on the chop-stick, and made it whirl as rapidly as possible. In

+this condition he tossed it up ten, then fifteen, then twenty or

+more feet into the air catching it on the chop-stick as it came

+down.

+

+He then changed the process. He tossed the bowl a foot

+high, and struck it with the other chop-stick one, two, three,

+four or five times before it came down, and this he did so

+rapidly and regularly as to make it sound almost like

+music. There is a record of one of the ancient poets who

+was able to play a tune with his bowl and chop-sticks

+after having finished his meal. He may have done it in this way.

+

+This trick seemed a very difficult performance. It excited

+the children, and some of the older persons clapped their

+hands and exclaimed, "Very good, very good." But when

+he tossed it only a foot high and let go the chop-stick, making

+it change ends, and catching the bowl, they were ready

+for a general applause. In striking the bowl and thus

+manipulating his chop-sticks, his hands moved almost as

+rapidly as those of an expert pianist.

+

+"Can you toss the knives?" piped up one of the children

+who had seen a juggler perform this difficult feat.

+

+The man picked up two large knives about a foot long and began

+tossing them with one hand. While this was going on a third knife

+was handed him and he kept them going with both hands. At times

+he threw them under his leg or behind his back, and at other

+times pitched them up twenty feet high, whirling them as rapidly

+as possible and catching them by the handles as they came down.

+

+While doing this he passed one of the knives to the attendant who

+gave him a bowl, and he kept the bowl and two knives going. Then

+he gave the attendant another knife and received a ball, and the

+knife, the ball and the bowl together, the ball and bowl at times

+moving as though the former were glued to the bottom of the

+latter.

+

+These were not all the tricks he could perform but they

+were all he would perform in addition to his bear show for

+twelve cents--for this was the man with the bear--so the

+children allowed him to go.

+

+Some weeks later they called in a different bear show. This bear

+was larger and a better performer, but his tricks were about the

+same.

+

+The juggler in addition to doing all we have already described

+performed also the following tricks.

+

+He first put one end of an iron rod fifteen inches long in his

+mouth. On this he placed a small revolving frame three by six

+inches. He set a bowl whirling on the end of a bamboo splint

+fifteen inches long, the other end of which he rested on one side

+of the frame, balancing the whole in his mouth.

+

+While the bowl continued whirling, he took the frame off

+the rod, stuck the bamboo in a hole in the frame an inch

+from the end, resting the other end of the frame on the rod,

+brought the bowl over so as to obtain a centre of gravity

+and thus balanced it.

+

+He took two small tridents a foot or more in length, put

+the end of the handle of one in his mouth, set the bowl

+whirling on the end of the handle of the other, rested the

+middle prong of one on the middle prong of the other and

+let it whirl with the bowl. Afterwards he set the prong of

+the whirling trident on the edge of the other and let it whirl.

+

+He took two long curved boar's teeth which were fastened on the

+ends of two sticks, one a foot long, the other six inches. The

+one he held in his mouth, the other having a hole diagonally

+through the stick, he inserted a chop-stick making an angle of

+seventy degrees. He set the bowl whirling on the end of the

+chop-stick, rested one tooth on the other, in the indentation and

+they whirled like a brace and bit.

+

+Finally he took a spiral wire having a straight point on

+each end. This he called a dead dragon. He set the bowl

+whirling on one end, placing the other on the small frame

+already referred to. As the spiral wire began to turn as

+though boring, he called it a living dragon. These feats of

+balancing excited much wonder and merriment on the part

+of the children.

+

+The juggler then took an iron trident with a handle four

+and a half feet long and an inch and a half thick, and,

+pitching it up into the air, caught it on his right arm as it

+came down. He allowed it to roll down his right arm, across his

+back, and along his left arm, and as he turned his body he kept

+the trident rolling around crossing his back and breast and

+giving it a new impetus with each arm. The trident had on it two

+cymbal-shaped iron plates which kept up a constant rattling.

+

+This showman had with him three boy acrobats whose skill he

+proceeded to show.

+

+"Pitch the balls," he said.

+

+The largest of the three boys fastened a cushioned band, on which

+was a leather cup, around his head, the cup being on his forehead

+just between his eyes.

+

+He took two wooden balls, two and a half inches in diameter,

+tossed them in the air twenty feet high, catching them in the cup

+as they came down. The shape of the cup was such as to hold the

+balls by suction when they fell. He never once missed. This is

+the most dangerous looking of all the tricks I have seen jugglers

+perform.

+

+"Shooting stars," said the showman.

+

+The boy tossed aside his cup and balls and took a string six feet

+long, on the two ends of which were fastened wooden balls two

+and a half inches in diameter. He set the balls whirling in

+opposite directions until they moved so rapidly as to stretch the

+string, which he then held in the middle with finger and thumb

+and by a simple motion of the hand kept the balls whirling.

+

+He was an expert, and changed the swinging of the balls

+in as many different ways as an expert club-swinger could

+his clubs.

+

+"Boy acrobats," called out the manager, as the manipulator of the

+"shooting stars" bowed himself out amid the applause of the

+children.

+

+The two smaller boys threw off their coats, hitched up

+their trousers--always a part of the performance whether

+necessary or not--and began the high kick, high jump,

+handspring, somersault, wagon wheel, ending with hand-

+spring, and bending backwards until their heads touched

+the ground.

+

+One of them stood on two benches a foot high, put a

+handkerchief on the ground, and bending backwards, picked

+it up with his teeth.

+

+The two boys then clasped each other around the waist,

+as in the illustration, and each threw the other back over his

+head a dozen times or more.

+

+Exit the bear show with the boy acrobats, enter the old

+woman juggler with her husband who beats the gong.

+

+This was one of the most interesting performances I have

+ever seen in China, perhaps because so unexpected.

+

+The old woman had small, bound feet. She lay flat on her

+back, stuck up her feet, and her husband put a crock a foot

+in diameter and a foot and a half deep upon them. She set

+it rolling on her feet until it whirled like a cylinder. She

+tossed it up in such a way as to have it light bottom side up

+on her "lillies,"[1] in which position she kept it whirling.

+Tossing it once more it came down on the side, and again

+tossing it she caught it right side up on her small feet,

+keeping it whirling all the time.

+

+[1] Small feet of the Chinese woman.

+

+

+My surprise was so great that I gave the old woman ten

+cents for performing this single trick.

+

+The tricks of sleight-of-hand performers are well-nigh

+without number. Some of them are easily understood,--surprising,

+however, to children--and often interesting to grown people,

+while others are very clever and not so easily understood.

+

+Instead of the hat from which innumerable small packages

+are taken, the Chinese magician had two hollow cylinders,

+which exactly fit into each other, that he took out of a box

+and placed upon a cylindrical chest, and from these two

+cylinders--each of which he repeatedly showed us as being

+without top or bottom and empty--he took a dinner of

+a dozen courses.

+

+He called upon the baker to bring bread, the grocer to

+bring vegetables, and after each call he took out of the

+cylinders the thing called for. He finally called the wine

+shop to bring wine, and removing both cylinders, he

+exposed to the surprised children a large crock of wine.

+

+As he brought out dish after dish, the children looked in

+open-mouthed wonder, and asked papa, mama or nurse,

+where he got them all, for they evidently were not in the

+cylinders. But papa saw him all the time manipulating the

+crock in the cylinder which he did not show, and he knew

+that all these things were taken from and then returned to

+this crock, while instead of being full of wine, he had only

+a cup of wine in a false lid which exactly fitted the mouth

+of the crock, and made it seem full.

+

+When he had put away his crock and cylinders, he produced what

+seemed to be two empty cups.

+

+He presented them to us to show that they were empty,

+then putting them mouth to mouth, and placing them on

+the ground, he left them a moment, when with a "presto

+change," and a wave of the hand, he removed the top cup

+and revealed to the astonished children and some of the

+children of a larger growth, a cup full of water with two or

+three little fish or frogs therein.

+

+On inquiry I was told that he had the under cup covered

+with a thin film of water-colored material, and that as he

+removed the top cup he removed also the film which left the 

+fish or frogs exposed to view.

+

+This same juggler performed many tricks of producing

+great dishes of water from under his garments, the mere

+enumeration of which, might prove to be tiresome.

+

+I was walking along the street one day near the mouth of

+Filial Piety Lane where a large company of men and children

+were watching a juggler, and from the trick I thought it worth

+while to invite him in for the amusement of the children. He

+promised to come about four o clock, which he did.

+

+He first proceeded to eat a hat full of yellow paper, after

+which, with a gag and a little puff, he pulled from his mouth

+a tube of paper of the same color five or six yards long.

+

+This was very skillfully performed and for a long time I

+was not able to understand how he did it. But after awhile

+I discovered that with the last mouthful of paper he put in a

+small roll, the centre of which he started by puffing, and

+this he pulled out in a long tube. He did it with so many

+groanings and with such pain in the region of the stomach,

+that attention was directed either to his stomach or the roll,

+and taken away from his mouth.

+

+"I shall eat these needles," said he, as he held up half a

+dozen needles, "and then eat this thread, after which I shall

+reproduce them."

+

+He did so. He grated his teeth together causing a sound

+much like that of breaking needles. He pretended to swallow

+them, working his tongue back and forth in his tightly

+closed mouth, after which he drew forth the thread on

+which all the needles were strung.

+

+He had a number of small white bone needles which he

+stuck into his nose and pulled out of his eyes, or which he

+pushed up under his upper lip and took out of his eyes or

+vice versa. How he performed the above trick I was not

+able to discover. He seemed to put them through the tear

+duct, but whether he did or not I cannot say. How he got

+them from his mouth to his eyes unless he had punctured a

+passage beneath the skin, is still to me a mystery.

+

+His last trick was to swallow a sword fifteen inches long.

+The sword was straight with a round point and dull edges.

+There was no deception about this. He was an old man

+and his front, upper teeth were badly worn away by the

+constant rasping of the not over-smooth sword. He simply

+put it in his mouth, threw back his head and stuck it down

+his throat to his stomach.

+

+

+STORIES TOLD TO CHILDREN

+

+One hot summer afternoon as I lay in the hammock trying

+to take a nap after a hard forenoon's work and a hearty

+lunch, I heard the same old nurse who had told me my first

+Chinese Mother Goose Rhymes, telling the following story

+to the same little boy to whom she had repeated the "Mouse

+and the Candlestick."

+

+She told him that the Chinese call the Milky Way the

+Heavenly River, and that the Spinning Girl referred to in the

+story is none other than the beautiful big star in Lyra which

+we call Vega, while the Cow-herd is Altair in Aquila.

+

+

+THE HEAVENLY RIVER, WITH THE PEOPLE WHO DWELL THEREON.

+

+Once upon a time there dwelt a beautiful maiden in a

+quiet little village on the shore of the Heavenly River.

+

+Her name was Vega, but the people of China have always

+called her the Spinning Maiden, because of her faithfulness

+to her work, for though days, and months, and years passed

+away, she never left her loom.

+

+Her diligence so moved the heart of her grandfather, the

+King of Heaven, that he determined to give her a vacation,

+which she at once decided to spend upon the earth.

+

+In a village near where the maiden dwelt there was a

+young man named Altair, whom the Chinese call the Cow-herd.

+

+Now the Cow-herd was in love with the Spinning Girl, but

+she was always so intent upon her work as never to give

+him an opportunity to confess his affection, but now he

+determined to follow her to earth, and, if possible, win her for

+his bride.

+

+He followed her through the green fields and shady

+groves, but never dared approach her or tell her of his love.

+

+At last, however, the time came. He discovered her

+bathing in a limpid stream, the banks of which were

+carpeted with flowers, while myriad boughs of blossoming

+peach and cherry trees hid her from all the world but him.

+

+He secretly crept near and stole away and hid her garments made

+of silken gauze and finely woven linen, making

+it alike impossible for her to resist his suit or to return to

+her celestial home.

+

+She yielded to the Cow-herd and soon became his wife,

+and as the years passed by a boy and girl were born to them,

+little star children, twins, such as are seen near by the

+Spinning Girl in her heavenly home to-day.

+

+One day she went to her husband, and, bowing low, requested that

+he return the clothes he had hid away, and he, thinking the

+presence of the children a sufficient guaranty for her remaining

+in his home, told her he had put them in an old, dry well hard by

+the place where she had been bathing.

+

+No sooner had she secured them than the aspect of their

+home was changed. The Cow-herd's wife once more became

+the Spinning Girl and hied her to her heavenly abode.

+

+It so happened that her husband had a piece of cow-skin which

+gave him power over earth and air. Snatching up this, with his

+ox-goad, he followed in the footsteps of his fleeing wife.

+

+Arriving at their heavenly home the happy couple sought

+the joys of married life. The Spinning Girl gave up her loom,

+and the Cow-herd his cattle, until their negligence annoyed

+the King of Heaven, and he repented having let her leave

+her loom. He called upon the Western Royal Mother for

+advice. After consultation they decided that the two should

+be separated. The Queen, with a single stroke of her great

+silver hairpin, drew a line across the heavens, and from

+that time the Heavenly River has flowed between them, and

+they are destined to dwell forever on the two sides of the

+Milky Way.

+

+What had seemed to the youthful pair the promise of

+perpetual joy, became a condition of unending grief. They

+were on the two sides of a bridgeless river, in plain sight of

+each other, but forever debarred from hearing the voice or

+pressing the land of the one beloved, doomed to perpetual

+toil unlit by any ray of joy or hope.

+

+Their evident affection and unhappy condition moved the

+heart of His Majesty, and caused him to allow them to visit

+each other once with each revolving year,--on the seventh

+day of the seventh moon. But permission was not enough,

+for as they looked upon the foaming waters of the turbulent

+stream, they could but weep for their wretched condition,

+for no bridge united its two banks, nor was it allowed that

+any structure be built which would mar the contour of the

+shining dome.

+

+In their helplessness the magpies came to their rescue. At

+early morn on the seventh day of the seventh moon, these

+beautiful birds gathered in great flocks about the home of

+the maiden, and hovering wing to wing above the river,

+made a bridge across which her dainty feet might carry her

+in safety. But when the time for separation came, the two

+wept bitterly, and their tears falling in copious showers are

+the cause of the heavy rains which fall at that season of the

+year.

+

+From time immemorial it has been known that the Yellow

+River is neither more nor less than a prolongation of the

+Milky Way, soiled by earthly contact and contamination, and

+that the homes of the Spinning Maiden and the Cow-herd

+are the centres of two of the numerous villages that adorn its

+banks. It is not to be wondered at, however, that in an evil and

+skeptical world there should be many who doubt these facts.

+

+On this account, and to forever settle the dispute, the

+great traveller and explorer, Chang Ch'ien, undertook to

+discover the source of the Yellow River. He first transformed

+the trunk of a great tree into a boat, provided himself with the

+necessities of life and started on his journey.

+

+Days passed into weeks, and weeks became months as he sailed up

+the murky waters of the turbid stream. But the farther he went

+the clearer the waters became until it seemed as if they were

+flowing over a bed of pure, white limestone. Village after

+village was passed both on his right hand and on his left, and

+many were the strange sights that met his gaze. The fields became

+more verdant, the flowers more beautiful, the scenery more

+gorgeous, and the people more like nymphs and fairies. The color

+of the clouds and the atmosphere was of a richer, softer hue;

+while the breezes which wafted his frail bark were milder and

+gentler than any he had known before.

+

+Despairing at last of reaching the source he stopped at a

+village where he saw a maiden spinning and a young man

+leading an ox to drink. He alighted from his boat and inquired of

+the girl the name of the place, but she, without making reply,

+tossed him her shuttle, telling him to return to his home and

+inquire of the astrologer, who would inform him where he received

+it, if he but told him when.

+

+He returned and presented the shuttle to the noted

+astrologer Chun Ping, informing him at the same time where,

+when and from whom he had received it. The latter consulted

+his observations and calculations and discovered that

+on the day and hour when the shuttle had been given to

+the traveller he had observed a wandering star enter and

+leave the villages of the Spinning Girl and the Cow-herd,

+which proved beyond doubt that the Yellow River is the

+prolongation of the Milky Way, while the points of light

+which we call stars, are the inhabitants of Heaven pursuing

+callings similar to our own.

+

+Chang Ch'ien made another important discovery, namely,

+that the celestials, understanding the seasons better than

+we, turn the shining dome in such a way as to make the

+Heavenly River indicate the seasons of the year, and so the

+children sing:

+

+     Whene'er the Milky Way you spy,

+     Diagonal across the sky,

+     The egg-plant you may safely eat,

+     And all your friends to melons treat.

+

+     But when divided towards the west,

+     You'll need your trousers and your vest

+     When like a horn you see it float;

+     You'll need your trousers and your coat.

+

+It is unnecessary to state that I did not go to sleep while

+the old nurse was telling the story of the Heavenly River.

+The child sat on his little stool, his elbows on his knees

+and his chin resting in his hands, listening with open lips

+and eyes sparkling with interest. To the old nurse it was

+real. The spinning girl and the cow-herd were living

+persons. The flowers bloomed,--we could almost smell their

+odor,--and the gentle breezes seemed to fan our cheeks.

+She had told the story so often that she believed it, and she

+imparted to us her own interest.

+

+"Nurse," said the child, "tell me about

+

+          " 'THE MAN IN THE MOON.' "

+

+"The man in the moon," said the old nurse, "is called

+Wu Kang. He was skilled in all the arts of the genii, and

+was accustomed to play before them whenever opportunity

+offered or occasion required.

+

+"Once it turned out that his performances were displeasing

+to the spirits, and for this offense he was banished

+to the moon, and condemned to perpetual toil in hewing

+down the cinnamon trees which grow there in great abundance.

+At every blow of the axe he made an incision, but

+only to see it close up when the axe was withdrawn.

+

+"He had another duty, however, a duty which was at

+times irksome, but one which on the whole was more

+pleasant than any that falls to men or spirits,--the duty

+indicated by the proverb that 'matches are made in the

+moon.'

+

+"It was his lot to bind together the feet of all those on

+earth who are destined to a betrothal, and in the performance

+of this duty, he was often compelled to return to

+earth. When doing so he came as an old man with long

+white hair and beard, with a book in his hand in which he

+had written the matrimonial alliances of all mankind. He

+also carried a wallet which contains a ball of invisible cord

+with which he ties together the feet of all those who are

+destined to be man and wife, and the destinies which he

+announces it is impossible to avoid.

+

+"On one occasion he came to the town of Sung, and

+while sitting in the moonlight, turning over the leaves of

+his book of destinies, he was asked by Wei Ku, who

+happened to be passing, who was destined to become his

+bride. The old man consulted his records, as he answered:

+'Your wife is the daughter of an old woman named Ch'en

+who sells vegetables in yonder shop.'

+

+"Having heard this, Wei Ku went the next day to look

+about him and if possible to get a glimpse of the one to

+whom the old man referred, but he discovered that the

+only child the old woman had was an ill-favored one of

+two years which she carried in her arms. He hired an

+assassin to murder the infant, but the blow was badly

+aimed and left only a scar on the child's eyebrow.

+

+"Fourteen years afterwards, Wei Ku married a beautiful

+maiden of sixteen whose only defect was a scar above the

+eye, and on inquiries he discovered that she was the one

+foretold by the Old Man of the Moon, and he recalled the

+proverb that 'Matches are made in heaven, and the bond of

+fate is sealed in the moon.' "

+

+"Nurse, tell me about the land of the big people,"

+whereupon the nurse told him of

+

+          THE LAND OF GIANTS.

+

+"There was in ancient times a country east of Korea which

+was called the land of the giants. It was celebrated for its

+length rather than for its width, being bounded on all sides

+by great mountain ranges, the like of which cannot be found

+in other countries. It extends for thousands of miles along

+the deep passes between the mountains, at the entrance to

+which there are great iron gates, easily closed, but very

+difficult to open.

+

+"Many armies have made war upon the giants, among

+which none have been more celebrated than those of Korea,

+which embraces in its standing army alone many thousands

+of men, but thus far they have never been conquered.

+

+"Nor is this to be wondered at, for besides their great iron

+gates, and numerous fortifications, the men are thirty feet

+tall according to our measurement, have teeth like a saw,

+hooked claws, and bodies covered with long black hair.

+

+"They live upon the flesh of fowls and wild beasts which

+are found in abundance in the mountain fastnesses, but they

+do not cook their food. They are very fond of human

+flesh, but they confine themselves to the flesh of enemies

+slain in battle, and do not eat the flesh of their own people,

+even though they be hostile, as this is contrary to the law

+of the land.

+

+"Their women are as large and fierce as the men, but their

+duties are confined to the preparation of extra clothing for

+winter wear, for although they are covered with hair it is

+insufficient to protect them from the winter's cold."

+

+While the old nurse was relating the tale of the giants I

+could not but wonder whether there was not some relation

+between that and the Brobdingnagians I had read about in

+my youth. But I was not given much time to think. This

+seemed to have been a story day, for the nurse had hardly

+finished the tale till the child said:

+

+"Now tell me about the country of the little people," and she

+related the story of

+

+          THE LAND OF DWARFS.

+

+"The country of the little people is in the west, where

+the sun goes down.

+

+"Once upon a time a company of Persian merchants were

+making a journey, when by a strange mishap they lost their

+way and came to the land of the little people. They were

+at first surprised, and then delighted, for they discovered

+that the country was not only densely populated with these

+little people, who were not more than three feet high, but

+that it was rich in all kinds of precious stones and rare and

+valuable materials.

+

+"They discovered also that during the season of planting

+and harvesting, they were in constant terror lest the great

+multitude of cranes, which are without number in that

+region, should swoop down upon them and eat both them

+and their crops. They soon learned, however, that the little

+people were under the protecting care of the Roman Empire,

+whose interest in them was great, and her arm mighty, and

+they were thus guarded from all evil influences as well as

+from all danger. Nor was this a wholly unselfish interest

+on the part of the Roman power, for the little people

+repaid her with rich presents of the most costly gems,--

+pearls, diamonds, rubies and other precious stones."

+

+I need not say I was beginning to be surprised at the

+number of tales the old woman told which corresponded

+to those I had been accustomed to read and hear in my

+childhood, nor was my surprise lessened when at his request

+she told him how

+

+          THE SUN WENT BACKWARD.

+

+"Once upon a time Lu Yang-kung was engaged in battle with Han

+Kou-nan, and they continued fighting until nearly sundown. The

+former was getting the better of the battle, but feared he would

+lose it unless they fought to a finish before the close of day.

+The sun was near the horizon, and the battle was not yet ended,

+and the former, pointing his lance at the King of Day caused him

+to move backward ten miles in his course."

+

+"When did that happen?" inquired the child.

+

+"The Chinese say it happened about three thousand years ago,"

+replied the old nurse.

+

+"Now tell me about the man who went to the fire star."

+

+The old woman hesitated a moment as though she was trying to

+recall something and then told him the story of

+

+          MARS, THE GOD OF WAR.

+

+"Once upon a time there was a great rebel whose name

+was Ch'ih Yu. He was the first great rebel that ever lived

+in China. He did not want to obey the chief ruler, and

+invented for himself warlike weapons, thinking that in this

+way he might overthrow the government and place himself

+upon the throne.

+

+"He had eighty-one brothers, of whom he was the leader. They had

+human speech, but bodies of beasts, foreheads of iron, and fed

+upon the dust of the earth.

+

+"When the time for the battle came, he called upon the

+Chief of the Wind and the Master of the Rain to assist him,

+and there arose a great tempest. But the Chief sent the

+Daughter of Heaven to quell the storm, and then seized and

+slew the rebel. His spirit ascended to the Fire-Star (Mars)

+--the embodiment of which he was while upon earth,--

+where it resides and influences the conduct of warfare even

+to the present time."

+

+"Tell me the story of the man who went to the mountain

+to gather fire-wood and did not come home for such a

+long time."

+

+The old nurse began a story which as it progressed

+reminded me of

+

+          RIP VAN WINKLE.

+

+"A long time ago there lived a man named Wang Chih,

+which in our language means 'the stuff of which kings

+are made.' In spite of his name, however, he was only a

+common husbandman, spending his summers in plowing,

+planting and harvesting, and his winters in gathering

+fertilizers upon the highways, and fire-wood in the mountains.

+

+"On one occasion he wandered into the mountains of 

+Ch'u Chou, his axe upon his shoulder, hoping to find more

+and better fire-wood than could be found upon his own

+scanty acres, or the adjoining plain. While in the

+mountains he came upon a number of aged men, in a beautiful

+mountain grotto, intently engaged in a game of chess.

+Wang was a good chess-player himself, and for the time

+forgot his errand. He laid down his axe, stood silently

+watching them, and in a very few moments was deeply

+interested in the game.

+

+"It was while he was thus watching them that one of

+the old men, without looking up from the game, gave him

+what seemed to be a date seed, telling him at the same time

+to put it in his mouth. He did so, but no sooner had he

+tasted it, than he lost all consciousness of hunger and thirst,

+and continued to stand watching the players and the progress

+of the game, thinking nothing of the flight of time.

+

+"At last one of the old men said to him:

+

+" 'You have been here a long time, ought you not to go home?'

+

+"This aroused him from his reverie, and he seemed to

+awake as from a dream, his interest in the game passed

+away, and he attempted to pick up his axe, but found that

+it was covered with rust and the handle had moulded away.

+But while this called his attention to the fact that time had

+passed, he felt not the burden of years.

+

+"When he returned to the plain, and to what had formerly been his

+home, he discovered that not only years but centuries had passed

+away since he had left for the mountains, and that his relatives

+and friends had all crossed to the 'Yellow Springs,' while all

+records of his departure had long since been forgotten, and he

+alone remained a relic of the past.

+

+"He wandered up and down inquiring of the oldest people of all

+the villages, but could discover no link which bound him to the

+present.

+

+"He returned to the mountain grotto, devoted himself to

+the study of the occult principles of the 'Old Philosopher'

+until the material elements of his mortal frame were gradually

+evaporated or sublimated, and without having passed

+through the change which men call death, he became an

+immortal spirit returning whence he came."

+

+Just as the old woman finished this story, my teacher,

+who always took a nap after lunch, ascended the steps.

+

+"Ah, the story of Wang Chih."

+

+"Do you know any of these stories?" I asked him as I sat down

+beside him.

+

+"All children learn these stories in their youth," he

+answered, and then as if fearing I would try to induce him to

+tell them to me he continued, "but nurses always tell these

+stories better than any one else, because they tell them so

+often to the children, for whom alone they were made."

+

+

+

+

+

+End of The Project Gutenberg Etext of The Chinese Boy and Girl

+

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