GIRLS
It is hard to begin life as one who is not wanted. Many a Chinese
girl cannot help knowing that she has come into the world bringing
disappointment to her father and mother.
“What is your little one’s name?” said a foreigner to a woman, who was
walking along with a small child near Amoy.
“It is a girl,” was the reply, as much as to say, “You need not trouble
to waste time asking about her.”
“I know, venerable dame,” said the foreigner, “but what is her name?”
“Not Wanted,” was the strange answer.
“You should love your little girl as much as a boy. Why do you speak so
unkindly of her?” said the foreigner, thinking that the mother meant
she did not want her child. The woman laughed, but said nothing.
“Now tell me her name,” persisted the foreigner, anxious to show
interest in the despised girl.
“Not Wanted,” repeated the woman again.
“Not ...” began the stranger once more, meaning to tell the ignorant
woman not to speak so unkindly of her little girl.
“Not Wanted is her name,” said the woman quickly, before the foreigner
could finish the sentence.
It would be sad indeed to know one was not wanted, but it would be
harder still to be reminded of it every time one was called by one’s
own name. How would an English girl like to be so treated? “Not
Wanted, come and have your hair brushed.” “Not Wanted, where are you?”
“Not Wanted, come and play with your little brother,” and so forth.
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; and she will learn to do the fine embroideries,
most of which are the work of Buddhist nuns.
Sometimes, when the fortune-teller says a little girl will bring bad
luck to her own family, she is given to another household, where she
will be brought up to be the wife of one of the sons, when he is old
enough to marry. This often happens, but it is not a good plan and
leads to unhappiness, as you will hear later on.
The everyday dress of Chinese girls is simple enough. When they first
begin to walk they are odd little bundles of clothes, topped by a
little jacket and a cloth cap, which covers their head and ears and
neck, leaving the face open. When they grow older they wear jackets of
cotton,--blue stamped with white flowers is a favourite pattern,--loose
coloured trousers and tiny embroidered shoes. They wear ear-rings,
silver bangles on their ankles, and sometimes a ring on one finger.
When they are engaged to be married, they wear a bangle on one arm.
Their hair, which has been worn in a plait behind, is, when they are
old enough to be married, put up in a neat coil at the back of the
head, and pretty pins and flowers are stuck into it. It is a great day
in a girl’s life when her hair is done up in this way.
The first great trial which a Chinese girl has to meet is when she
has her feet bound. Her toes are pulled towards the heel, by winding
a strip of cotton cloth round them and drawing it tight. Tiny girls
of six or seven sometimes have to bear the pain of having their poor
little feet pinched together in this way, though eight or nine is the
more common age to begin. It must be extremely painful to have the
bones twisted and the flesh crushed, until it decays and dries; but
when the pain is over, and a girl has ‘golden lilies,’ only two or
three inches long, she is very proud of them, and people praise the
child’s mother for all the trouble she has taken to make her daughter
look so beautiful! So strong is the desire to be admired, that often
girls beg to have their feet bound, in spite of all the pain they will
have to bear.
Foot-binding, being foreign to Manchu customs, is not allowed in the
Palace. Some years ago, the Empress Dowager herself issued an edict
to the people saying: “Not to bind is better.” Children brought up in
God-fearing homes seldom or never have to suffer the torture of being
thus lamed for life. And now, in many parts of China, fathers and
mothers, who do not wish their little girls to be crippled, have joined
themselves into what is called ‘The Natural Foot Society.’ Let us hope
that before long there will be no more foot-binding in China.
Girls brought up in wealthy homes are seldom seen out of doors, but
poorer children, at a very early age, have to do something to help to
earn their living. They gather firing; they nurse the baby; they cook
and sew; they learn to scrape the soot from the bottom of the family
rice pot with a hoe; and, in some places, they very early begin to
carry loads, slung from a pole on their shoulders. Some sit beside
their mothers and help to make paper money to be offered to idols. Some
paste rags on a board, one on the top of the other, to be afterwards
made into soles for shoes; or they weave coloured tape, or twist
fibre into rough string. In some parts of China they make embroidery,
working beautiful birds and flowers with their clever fingers. All
Chinese girls learn to embroider and make up their own shoes and
the embroidered bands which they wear round their distorted ankles.
Sometimes they feed silk-worms with mulberry leaves, and afterwards
wind the threads off the cocoons which the worms have spun. When a
little older some girls may be seen making silver ornaments for women’s
hair-pins, but this is work usually done by men and boys; sometimes
poor girls, while they are quite young, sell cakes and sweets in the
streets, to help their parents; often they spin cotton and weave it
into cloth, to make clothes for all the family.
With the exception of a very few daughters of scholars, who were taught
to read and write by their fathers, girls used never to be troubled
with learning. In spite of this, there are books giving the names of
wise and learned women, some of whom, especially in the time of the
T’ang Dynasty, wrote famous poems. This shows that ages ago women
in China were educated, but as a rule in later days they were left
untaught, to learn by slow degrees the ‘three dependencies of woman,’
“who,” as the Chinese say, “depends upon her father when she is young,
on her husband when she is older, and upon her son when she is very
old.” The story is told of a girl, who used to sing as she toiled
at her daily tasks: “Oh, the tea-cup, the tea-cup, the beautiful,
beautiful tea-cup”--that was all the song she knew! When Christianity
comes, it brings new hope and new songs, and teaches girls and boys
alike to know of God and Heaven and a life away beyond the narrow
courts of the houses in which the earthly lives of so many Chinese
girls are shut up.
As we have seen already, a change has come over China. At the beginning
of 1909 there were said to be thirty-seven girls’ schools in Canton
alone, one of which had over three hundred pupils, and every year adds
to the number of such schools, all over the land. Christian girls teach
in these schools. Not long ago a girl refused to become teacher in a
Government school because she would not be allowed to read the Bible
with the scholars there. Twice she said she would not go, although
offered more money each time. At last the authorities said: “We must
have you in our school; you may do what you like; you may teach the
Bible--only you must come.” Some Christian girls, after leaving school,
study in the women’s hospitals and become nurses and doctors. At
first they help the missionary lady doctors, and afterwards, in some
cases, they earn their living by going out to care for sick women and
children. Thus Christianity has opened up a new way by which women may
support themselves in China.
When they are tiny little children girls are often engaged to be
married and go to live in their future husbands’ homes. They are
married, too, when very young. Sometimes a little girl is told only a
short time before that she is to be sent away in a great red chair and
become somebody’s wife in another home. Poor little thing, she is often
very frightened and unwilling to go.
The story of Pink Jade will help you to understand about girls’
marriages in China. The first hint she had of what was going to happen
was when an old woman, called the ‘go-between,’ came to her father’s
house with a silver bracelet and some hair ornaments for her, as a
present from her future husband’s family. A paper stamped with a dragon
had already been sent to her parents, giving a description of the young
man she was to marry, and a paper stamped with a phœnix, giving a
description of herself, had been sent in exchange.
Pink Jade’s father gave her many nice clothes and dresses, five pairs
of embroidered shoes, three pairs of red wooden heels, seven pairs
of silver finger-rings, bracelets and hair ornaments. These gifts
were packed in four red boxes and a dressing-case. Then there was
some bedding in a red box, five washing tubs, a wardrobe, a table and
two red lanterns. On her wedding-day Pink Jade was dressed in black
trousers and petticoat trimmed with embroidery, an embroidered green
satin jacket, a beautiful head-band, the gift of her mother-in-law,
and many hair ornaments. Before she left her home a thick veil of red
and gold, about a foot square, was fastened to her head-band by a few
stitches.
A little before noon the great red chair, in which she had been carried
by several men, drew near to the bridegroom’s house. The burden-bearers
now went on in front with the red boxes and other things, the little
bride following behind in her chair, attended by the ‘go-between,’ and
four men carrying lanterns.
It was a shy little maiden that entered the new home; then came the
ceremony of bride and bridegroom together worshipping heaven and earth,
after which they bowed down before the bridegroom’s parents and their
ancestral tablets. Some hours later, the husband cut the stitches of
the veil, and for the first time saw the face of his bride. She did
not see him, however, for she dared not lift her eyes. Crowds of women
from among the guests and neighbours came to look at her, saying very
freely if they thought the bride pretty or ugly, which it is considered
quite polite to do at weddings. Later in the evening she was shown to
the men friends of the family, who repeated good wishes in verse, the
poor little bride having to stand all the time while this and the other
ceremonies were gone through.
On the second day Pink Jade had to cook a meal and wash some clothes,
to show she understood her new duties. Her mother and sisters-in-law
were pleased with the little bride, so she was happy in her new home.
But before very long her husband went abroad, coming back to China only
now and then.
When but a little girl of ten years old, Pink Jade had gone with her
grandmother to live in a city where there was a Christian church. She
was curious to see what happened inside the church, so she went to
service there several times; but the singing, reading and praying all
seemed strange to her, for she did not understand what they meant. Her
husband had also been in church when young, but he did not like the
‘new religion,’ and would have nothing to do with worshipping God.
But it happened that after she was married, Pink Jade took ill and went
to the Mission Hospital at Swatow, where she heard about Our Lord Jesus
Christ, and how He came to save sinners from their sins. She became so
much interested that she persuaded her husband to attend the services
in the Hospital chapel, and before long he himself believed in Jesus
Christ, and was received into the church by baptism. Pink Jade learned
to read and in time gave her heart, too, to God’s service.[4]
Here is a simple rime which girls learn to repeat, so that they may
know what to do, when afterwards they go as brides to their new homes.
“Bamboos thick, thick arise,
Child in wifely love be wise,
Late take rest, soon, soon rise,
Wake, comb your hair,
Adorn your face, lips, eyes;
Chairs, tables, dust in hall,
Wash kitchen dishes all,
In chamber sewing fall.
Praise brothers, great and small,
Father, mother, worthy call,
Praise your home, both roof and wall,
Praise your lucky husband tall.”
In China, as in other lands, the Gospel of Our Lord Jesus Christ brings
new love and new happiness to girls and women alike. It frees them from
being despised and ill-treated, and gives them their true place in the
home, for it teaches men that “there is neither bond nor free, there is
neither male nor female; for ye are all one in Christ Jesus.”