C. Campbell Brown

“ Let us turn down this narrow lane. Now we have left the shops and the busy street. Look at the rows of smallish houses, each with a bit of plain wall and a bamboo screen hanging in front of the door. You hear the sound of children’s voices within as you pass. How happy that little boy is, running along in bright red trousers, flying his kite. His home is near by; when he is older he will go to school, or learn a trade in one of the shops not far away.
Here the streets are narrower. What strange names they have! Stone Bird Lane, Grinding Row, Old Woo’s Lane, Bean Curd Lane, Family Ma’s Market. ”

“ The spirit of the idol is thought to enter these men. They foam at the mouth, they whirl round and rush about, they cut themselves, striking wildly over their shoulders with their swords. Though they do not wound themselves badly, yet thin streaks of red show where the skin is cut. Guns are fired and piles of paper money send up clouds of smoke. The ‘mediums,’ as these men may be called, put their swords between their teeth and leap on to the carrying poles of the idols’ sedan-chair, and thus standing behind the image, they are carried through the streets. ”

“ Chinese boys and girls are fond of study, and so they will surely make their country famous once more. The romance of China is not connected with making love or fighting; it gathers round the boy who is faithful at his tasks, who takes his degree early and rises to be a great official. When the reward of years of hard work comes, he goes back to the old home, bringing comfort and honour to all his friends. This is the hope which has helped on many a little scholar and made his school life glad. ”

“ Small at first and surrounded by savages, the baby kingdom soon began to grow. Like the tiny tent of the Arabian Nights’ Entertainments, which unfolded until an army could rest beneath the roof, China spread until, a thousand years before the time of Our Lord, its borders on the north and west were pretty much what they are to-day, and it had crept southwards many miles beyond the Yellow River. ”

“ You cannot easily get at their homes because of the streams of blue-clad people who throng the streets. Come for a walk among the busy shops, so that you may know something of the place where Chinese boys and girls spend so much of their time. Sedan-chairs, carried by strong men, push through the crowd, shaving butchers’ stalls and narrowly missing the heads of running children. Burden bearers, with bags of rice on their backs, or loaded with vegetables, pigs in open baskets, bales of cotton or tobacco, follow one another over the slippery pavement. ”

“ She bows and curtsies all day, until even the fat baby, lying on a kerb-stone at the edge of the court, grows tired of watching her antics.
Children run in and out of the house. One plays with a big, green grasshopper, which struggles hopelessly at the end of a string. Somewhere outside, a little boy or girl is sure to be leading a buffalo by a rope, on the edge of the rice fields. Farther away some boys and girls are gathering leaves, or cutting fern on the hillside. ”

“ Much as the Chinese praise faithfulness, the old men shake their heads and tell their children that people born in the time of the Emperor Hien-fung were more honest than those born during these last forty years, and those born earlier still, in the days of Tau-kwang, were still more faithful. It is the usual story, “the old days were better than the new,” [80] but the very sense of failure makes the people, young and old, more ready to welcome that Saviour, who alone can help men to be faithful and upright and true and good. ”

“ Every time the shuttle flies across, the web gains a line. Thread by thread it lengthens, just as a child’s life lengthens day by day; that is why the Chinese proverb says, “Days and months are like a shuttle, light and dark fly like an arrow.” The older boys of the household are at school or at work. That woman who is washing rice in an earthen pot, has a baby slung by a checked cotton cloth upon her back. The child rolls its bullet head and sucks a fat thumb, whilst one dumpy foot sticks out below its mother’s arm. ”

“ If, in spite of this, baby gets worse, its father thinks some idol is enticing its soul away from its little body. After finding out which idol is probably the thief, he takes one of the child’s little garments and puts it into an empty basket, which has a length of dry straw rope tied round it. Then he goes to the temple, and, after offering things which he thinks will please the idol, and make it willing to let baby’s spirit go again, he spreads out the little jacket, believing that the tiny soul will recognise its own garment and get into it. ”

“ People climb on to the roofs of their houses, carrying clothes and the few things they hope to save from the flood. They crouch on the tiles, with their babies and little children, under the pitiless rain. Kind people, whose houses, being on higher ground, have not been deluged, go out in boats carrying food to them, for often they have had nothing to eat for several days. ”

“ The thief, who was still crouching on the roof of the cottage, took fright at the sound, and making sure that the terrible beast he had heard of was coming back, jumped down from the tiles, narrowly missing the deer as he reached the ground.
“Help, help, your Excellency, the Lio!” cried the deer, terrified by something, he knew not what, coming tumbling out of the night. The tiger ‘put forth his strength’ and gave a great spring, when crack! the deer’s tail broke off close by the root. ”

“ There are Taoist priests in every city of China, who sometimes may be seen in red and yellow robes with a curious topknot of yellow wood tied into their hair, going through strange rites, or cracking a whip with a long lash to frighten away demons. The Taoist god most feared by the people is the Kitchen God, who they think goes up to heaven once a year, and tells what each member of the family has been doing during the twelve months. ”

“ Many have their heads on one side, with a double string hanging down from their mouths. Some have a baby lion in front of them or a carved ball under one paw. A few have a ball inside their stone jaws and some are crouching as if to spring. The children are told that these stone lions stand in front of houses to prevent evil spirits or ghosts from coming along the lane to hurt people inside. They say that in the middle of the night the lions come down from their stone pedestals and play about the streets with their balls, rolling over and over one another! ”

“ In spite of the fact that many children are stolen and lost, or become ill from heat and exposure at these festivals, the foolish people believe that the goddess takes special care of her adopted children.
The fifth day of the fifth moon is the dragon boat festival, when schoolboys present some cash to their teacher, and teachers give a fan with an inscription on it to each of their pupils. The children go with their friends to look at the dragon boats racing. They love to see the paddles splash in the water, to listen to the drums beating and the shouts of the rowers. ”

“ So when customers come to have their fortunes told, the bird looks over the papers until it finds the one folded at the edge by the fortune-teller, and then picks it up and gives it to be read by him.
This account of a few of their superstitions will serve to show you in what constant trouble and dread the Chinese children live, for fear of the demons and spirits all round them, because they do not know and trust in God. When living among them one cannot but feel that they are like the people long ago, “who, through fear of death, were all their lifetime subject to bondage.” ”

“ When the bird rises in the wind it hovers like a living thing, and the strip of bamboo buzzes with a loud humming noise. Others are shaped like butterflies, centipedes, and other creatures. One of the most beautiful kites is shaped like a fish, so as to curve and sway in the air, much as a fish does in water.
There are several games played with cash, one in which the coins are thrown into a hole scooped by the roadside; another in which they are struck against a wall, so as to rebound and fall beside a certain mark on the ground, but these, as a rule, are a kind of gambling. ”

“ KINDERGARTEN PUPILS
Kindergartens, where little boys and girls go to learn their first lessons, though new to China, are much [29] liked by the children and their parents, and before long will become a great power for good in the land. The little ones love to sing and march in time. Their tiny fingers are clever at making hills and islands out of sand, or counting coloured balls and marbles. Their sharp eyes are quick to see picture lessons, which are drawn for them upon the blackboard, and their ears attentive to the teacher who explains them. ”

“ Coins, charms of copper and silver, and little square bags of incense powder, with the names of idols written on them, are also hung round children’s necks to keep away the evil spirits.
If a little one takes ill the father sometimes begs one cash from a hundred different people among his neighbours and friends. With these coins he has a chain made to go round the child’s neck and a padlock to fasten it tightly. In this way he hopes, poor man, to fasten baby’s soul firmly to its body, and so prevent it from dying. ”

“ When boys and girls are born, their fortunes are told. The baby’s father gets the child’s ‘eight characters’ written down on a piece of paper. Two of the ‘characters’ tell the year, two the month, two the day and two the hour when the little one came into this world; these he takes to the man who ‘looks at people’s lives,’ who he believes can tell from them whether the child will be fortunate or unhappy in this world. This fortune-teller, who is very often blind, has a great deal to do with baby’s fate. ”

“ You must know that the yellow cow has a fold of skin which hangs loose beneath her neck, and a loud bellow, while the buffalo has a tight grey skin, that looks some sizes too small for his great round body, and a tiny wheezing voice, which sounds strangely coming from so large a beast. Long ago the buffalo was yellow and his skin fitted well enough, while the cow was grey. Now it happened that one hot day the cow and the buffalo went to bathe in the river, leaving their clothes upon the bank, while they enjoyed themselves in the cool, green water. ”

“ Chinese children are often reminded to be faithful by the books which they read at school: “Hold faithfulness and sincerity as first principles.” “Daily I examine myself in regard to three things, whether in doing business for others I may have been unfaithful, whether I may have been insincere with my friends, whether I may not have laid to heart the teachings of my master;” and such lessons are made clear to their minds by the example of men and women praised for faithfulness in every district of the land. ”

“ Last year a Christian, after his conscience had been awakened, confessed that years before, while still a heathen, he had strangled a baby daughter, and put the little body into the mud of one of his rice fields.
Of late years, in many parts of China, the practice of putting girl babies to death has almost entirely ceased, partly, no doubt, because girls are scarce, and their value has risen accordingly; in some places as much as six hundred dollars being given by ordinary people for a wife. ”

“ Stories are told of children diligent at their books, who were famous in after life. One lad, who was too poor to buy oil for his lamp, used to catch fire-flies and read by the pale-green light they gave. He put the fire-flies inside a tiny muslin bag, which he laid upon the page of his book, the light which they gave being just enough to let him follow his lesson, line by line. Another used to read by the light reflected from snow, as the day failed, or when the moon rose. A third used to fasten his book to the horn of the cow he was tending, so as to use the precious hours for study ”

“ An officer in the army would have a bear or some other fierce animal embroidered on his jacket instead of a bird.
In country homes a mill for taking the husk off rice stands inside the door, where perhaps you might expect to find a hatstand. Sometimes a sleek brown cow moos softly on the other side of the porch. Jars, full of salted vegetables, share the front court with the usual pigs, chickens and dogs. Look at that mandarin duck, bobbing her head and throwing forward her bill, as if trying to bring up a bone which had stuck in her throat just as she was in the act of curtsying to you. ”

“ Fork-like prongs stick out from the roofs of the houses to drive away demons. Streets and roads often, for no reason, turn a sharp corner, and the furrows ploughed in the fields are awry, so that the spirits may lose their way and not come along them to hurt people. They think there are spirits of the door and spirits under the eaves, spirits of the rafters and spirits of the bed.
Sometimes you will see a head with a shining sword in its mouth above a door; sometimes a sword, made of round brass cash, tied together by a red cord, hangs in a bedroom. ”

“ If a wicked spirit comes to hurt anyone inside the room the spirit of the sword is supposed to flash out and drive it away.
In the hills and waters, in graves and in houses, in great stones and in old trees, in the moon and in the stars, there are, the Chinese say, spirits and spiritual [67] influences. There is the earth spirit in the ground and there are dragons which may be made very angry if the soil is dug too deeply. If an earth dragon is angry and moves his tail, half a city may fall down. There are dragons too of air and water. ”

“ When a baby girl’s fortune, as told by the fortune-tellers, is not a lucky one, she may perhaps be handed over to Buddhist nuns, who will give her rice, potatoes and vegetables, but no fish or meat or eggs. The little one, if she lives to grow up, will serve in the nunnery and help with the worship offered to the idols. When old enough to become a nun she will have her head shaved, till it looks as round as a bullet, and wear tight black trousers, a short blue coat and a close-fitting cap of black cloth ”