Chinese New Year

“ The Chinese have no Sunday, and are ready to work every day of the week, if they can get paid for it. Their only holiday is at New Year, which occurs with them usually in February, but is a movable feast, when they require an entire week to settle their affairs, square up their religious and secular accounts, and make a new start in life. The Chinese have one saving virtue. They pay their debts on every New Year's day. ”

“ To Chinese children I always think life in a Chinese city must be very pleasant. There are the great festivals: the Chinese New Year, with all its countless 90 crackers; the Dragon Boat Festival, when each district of the city mans a boat shaped like a dragon, and all paddle like mad, naked to the waist, and with a strange shout that must be very dear to children. ”

“ The Chinese New Year crackers must afford occupation to a vast number of poor people. The varieties of the crackers are legion, and the number fired every New Year’s Day is not to be computed by a small mind or a limited arithmetician. We were walking once in interior China. ”

“ One saw them all over China for months afterward. The most miserable little hovels far outside the walls put up new paper gods that made brilliant splashes on doors and mud façades. Perhaps the saddest thing about the Chinese New Year is that all debts are expected to be paid before it breaks, which was particularly hard on what is still recognized abroad as the Chinese Government, months in arrears with every one except its Tuchuns and high employees of special influence. ”

“ CHINESE NEW YEAR.All the house-servants expect a holiday for a day or two at the Chinese new year, which occurs about the 20th of January. It is a mark of good breeding and condition with them to give presents at that time to every one in the house. ”

“ I have seen it in Los Angelos, in San Francisco, and in New York. In Melbourne, on the Australian diggings, in Calcutta, in Burmah, in the Straits Settlements, and in China it is the same. Millions of crackers fizz and explode; that is the most noticeable feature of the day. Friends and acquaintances call on each other. Strangers choose the day to pay visits of respect to Chinese notables. Debts are paid. Feasts are eaten and shops are closed.
No civilised nation keeps so few holidays as does the Chinese. New Year’s Day is the one day of national rest. ”

“ January is observed by all Europeans as a general holiday, when the ladies stay at home to preside over elaborate teas, at which all gentlemen of their acquaintance are expected to appear if only for a few minutes, while the men, both married and single, taking a large supply of cards, sally forth to call at the house of each lady in turn to wish her a Happy New Year, a proceeding which takes up several hours and necessitates a surprising amount of endurance. Dinners, dances, complimentary visits from Chinese friends, and other social functions help to swell the list of New Year obligations. ”

“ For four days past have great Chinese New Year Feast been celebrated. Third day the greatest day of all. Every where in land much feasting, much of firework, much of congratulating. (Gung-hi) .
Out side Compound wall, can hear soldiers marching in day, can see processions marching by night carrying lanterns and torches, with much music and fire-works.
Every body greet each other and say, "Seng Meng. Bing Ang." All girls in College most happy, because Honorable Teachers say, "For one week we now turn over College to students; we nothing say, nothing do. ”

“ Old women and young women squatted on their mats or their k‘angs, feverishly shuffle their cards and pay their little stakes, and all are having a good time.
That this state of things will not stop suddenly on the day after the Feast of Lanterns, is obvious. It often never stops at all, but goes on with a widening and lengthening trail of ruin, not ending even with the grave, but lasting to the third and fourth generation. Surely we are right in calling gambling a leading feature of a Chinese New Year. ”

“ Three of the principal car lines pass through it, so much of Chinatown and its life can be seen even by one coming up from downtown on the cars.
One is much amused by the curious ways and dress of the Chinese children, especially the young ones. Sometimes around Chinese New-Year's there is a great celebration and much firing of fire-crackers. Then the buildings are decorated in the brightest colors, and each Chinaman salutes his friend or neighbor with "Quong he fat choy" (Happy New-Year) . Chinamen also make presents to their white friends at this time, sometimes very elaborate ones. ”

“ Before Chinese New Year bargains are to be picked up—in Shanghai lovely embroidered satins, exquisite transparent tortoiseshell boxes, or china of the Ming period. Up-country our buyings are of a different order—a tiger-skin thirteen feet from head to tail, with grand markings, though of course not so thick a fur as is to be had at Newchwang. Head and tail and claws are all intact; and the man who brings it exhibits also its terrible jaws, and points to the holes where the spear entered before the man conquered the tiger. ”

“ Quantities of fattened ducks, pigs, chickens, and fishes, loads of baked things and sweets were transported in carts, rickshaws, and all sorts of vehicles or by hand, everyone chattering and smiling in happy anticipation. The Chinese New Year is the traditional time for settling all outstanding accounts. ”

“ The most robust imagination finds it impossible to conceive of a Chinese who should take this view of what always appeals to the finest feelings of his nature. There is therefore much reason in placing Dumplings in the forefront of a Chinese New Year. ”

“ A happy marriage has made many a plain woman pretty. China has been very happy in the race that has drawn its sustenance from her. Her civilisation is one of the oldest extant. Her architecture is antique. But she, in her own person, is verdant, fresh, and smiling. She has been loved and cared for tenderly.
CHAPTER XVII THE CHINESE NEW YEAR
If one had a great many debtors and no creditors one might well wish on New Year’s Day to be among the Chinese a Chinaman. ”

“ Before we left Macào, the Portuguese corvette Don Joao Primero, had landed the new Governor, Cordoza.
On the morning of the 1st of February got under way, and stood out of the harbor of Hong-Kong—destination, Manilla.
In this month commences the Chinese new year, and our departure deprived us of an opportunity of witnessing its celebration, which is curious and worth seeing. It is perhaps the only general holiday the Chinese have: they devote it to [84] feasting and hilarity, drinking sam-chu, and gambling ”

“ Periodical feasting may be regarded as another form of amusement by which the Chinese seek to relieve the monotony of life. They have never reserved one day in seven for absolute rest, though of late years Chinese merchants connected with foreign trade have to some extent fallen in with the observance of Sunday. Quite a number of days during the year are set apart as public holidays, but no one is obliged to keep them as such, unless he likes, with one important exception. The festival of the New Year cannot be ignored by any one. ”

“ The social customs of China do not afford much opportunity for scandal; but who can say? Cupid even in China is as ingenious as he is mischievous. Games, too, are indulged in, the Chinese card games being as mysteriously intricate as is their chess.
Should the guest bring her children, the little ones all receive presents, these delicate attentions being never neglected; indeed, the giving of presents at the New Year and other annual festivals is a settled Chinese custom. ”

“ This being the Chinese New Year month we have usually had scarcely any patients, and at least for a number of days no patients at all; but this year we had no day without patients, and often had thirty, forty, and even over fifty patients a day, which is certainly unprecedented. You cannot imagine how strong a prejudice the average Chinaman has against doing work of any kind too soon after New Year's. ”

“ In Santa Barbara, where I was during the Chinese New Year's of 1882, we heard the crackers long before we reached Chinatown. After these stopped we went into the houses. Every Chinese family keeps open house on New Year's day all day long. They set up a picture or an image of their god in some prominent place, and on a table in front of this they put a little feast of good things to eat. Some are for an offering to the god and some are for their friends who call. Everyone is expected to take something. ”

“ By the help of many kind friends in different parts of China, we were enabled to open a soup-kitchen and provide hot food every day for six weeks, during the bitterest part of the winter, to an average of three hundred persons each day, and also to give away several warm garments to those in direst need. Every day we taught the people to repeat hymns, grace before meat, and told them stories from the Bible. On the Chinese New Year's Day we gave them a special treat of mutton-broth and afterwards showed them, with the magic lantern, some scenes in the life of our Lord. ”

“ Like Christianity, the new calendar is considered something foreign, which is quite enough, even leaving the tenacity of old custom aside, to condemn it among many Chinese; and even in official circles the lunar New Year is celebrated more thoroughly than the other. The result is that no government employee has to come to office on the foreign New Year, and no one does on the old one, when even cabinet members go to their ancestral homes or on a spree to Tientsin or Shanghai. Nor is the cult of cyclical animals by any means dead among the Chinese. ”

“ However, even at Canton, and in all other cities of the empire, no corpse is permitted to enter the southern gate, because the Emperor of China gets on his throne with his face towards the south.
THE NEW YEAR.
The Chinese make their new year commence on the new moon, nearest to the time when the sun's place is in the 15th degree of Aquarius. It is the greatest festival observed in the empire. Both the government and the people, rich and poor, take a longer or shorter respite from their cares and their labours at the new year. ”

“ Greater familiarity with the conditions and details of Chinese life lead us to wonder that so laborious a people find time for all this junketing and vain display. The marvel is indeed a permanent one, but it ceases to surprise us when we have once taken in the fact that the whole Chinese race have as a unit, practically agreed to deduct from the twelve available months, an entire half moon, from New Year till the Feast of Lanterns. ”

“ It requires but a slight acquaintance with the facts, however, to make us aware that while the ceremonies connected with the dead are important, they are soon disposed of once for all, and that they do not form a part of the permanent New Year landscape. It is quite otherwise with the social ceremonies connected with the living. The practice of New Year calls, as found in some Western lands is a very feeble parody of the Chinese usage. We call on whom we choose to call upon, when we choose to go. ”

“ There are no age-limits among the Chinese in the use of New Year’s toys; even solemn old men fly kites all over the city at this season, among the swirls of pigeons following their whistle-bearing leader about the cloudless heavens.
All this went on for a week or more, though with diminishing ardor; for some soon tire of so long a holiday, and many would starve if they celebrated it all, so that gradually men went back to work, though not a few stuck it out. We hardly noticed a lack of rickshaws even on the first day, and the calls of street-hawkers never completely died out. ”

“ A few men are in silks; numbers of coolies, with loads, are almost naked, but more, of a slightly higher order, are in rags; for the Chinese, unlike their scrupulously clean brethren of Japan, appear to pile on one tattered, greasy cloth rag over another until they are a bundle of filth, against which you fear at every step lest you may be pushed. The shops or booths on each side of the narrow streets are resplendent just now, preparatory to the New-Year celebrations, and those which make temple decorations a specialty are brilliant in the extreme. ”

“ However little attention he may pay to the Chinese calendar, every foreigner in China is sure to be reminded in a very effective way of the approach of the close of the Chinese year, long before the edge of the New Year is to be seen above the horizon. ”

“ In the centre of the room was a table, all arranged for the New Year, and on it were great bowls of China lilies, and Chinese lemons and oranges. Then there was a polished tray, holding all kinds of candy and nuts. The windows were a perfect mass of lily and almond blossom, and peacock’s feathers were everywhere staring, with their green eyes. Outside was the balcony, from which the ladies had first spoken to the little lost boy, and on it were many big dragon lanterns, whose soft light fell upon the flowers, and made it look like fairyland. ”

“ The chief floral festival of the Chinese is on their new year's day, when their rivers are covered with boats laden with flowers, and gay flags streaming from every mast. Their homes and temples are richly hung with festoons of flowers. Boughs of the peach and plum trees in blossom, enkíanthus quinque-flòra, camelias, cockscombs, magnolias, jonquils are then exposed for sale in all the streets of Canton. Even the Chinese ladies, who are visible at no other season, are seen on this occasion in flower-boats on the river or in the public gardens on the shore. ”