Chinamen suffer horribly from _ennui_--especially the first of the
four classes into which the non-official world has been subdivided.[*]
They have no rational amusements wherewith to fill up the intervals of
work. They hate physical exercise; more than that, they despise it as
fit only for the ignorant and low. Yet they have not supplied its
place with anything intellectual, and the most casual observer cannot
fail to notice that China has no national game. Fencing, rowing, and
cricket, are alike unknown; and archery, such as it is, claims the
attention chiefly of candidates for official honours. Within doors
they have chess, but it is not the game Europeans recognise by that
name, nor is it even worthy of being mentioned in the same breath.
There is also another game played with three hundred and sixty black
and white pips on a board containing three hundred and sixty-one
squares, but this is very difficult and known only to the few. It is
said to have been invented by His Majesty the Emperor Yao who lived
about two thousand three hundred and fifty years before Christ, so
that granting an error of a couple of thousand years or so, it is
still a very ancient pastime. Dominoes are known, but not much
patronised; cards, on the other hand, are very common, the favourite
games being those in which almost everything is left to chance. As to
open-air amusements, youths of the baser sort indulge in battledore
and shuttlecock without the battledore, and every resident in China
must have admired the skill with which the foot is used instead, at
this foot-shuttlecock game. Twirling heavy bars round the body, and
gymnastics generally, are practised by the coolie and horse-boy
classes; but the disciple of Confucius, who has already discovered how
"pleasant it is to learn with a constant perseverance and
application,"[+] would stare indeed if asked to lay aside for one
moment that dignified carriage on which so much stress has been laid
by the Master. Besides this, finger-nails an inch and a half long,
guarded with an elaborate silver sheath, are decidedly _impedimenta_
in the way of athletic success. No,--when the daily quantum of reading
has been achieved, a Chinese student has very little to fall back upon
in the way of amusement. He may take a stroll through the town and
look in at the shops, or seek out some friend as _ennuye_ as himself,
and while away an hour over a cup of tea and a pipe. Occasionally a
number of young men will join together and form a kind of literary
club, meeting at certain periods to read essays or poems on subjects
previously agreed upon by all. We heard of one youth who, burning for
the poet's laurel, produced the following quatrain on _snow_, which
had been chosen as the theme for the day:--
The north-east wind blew clear and bright,
Each hole was filled up smooth and flat:
The black dog suddenly grew white,
The white dog suddenly grew--
"And here," said the poet, "I broke down, not being able to get an
appropriate rhyme to _flat_." A wag who was present suggested _fat_,
pointing out that the dog's increased bulk by the snow falling on his
back fully justified the meaning, and, what is of equal importance in
Chinese poetry, the antithesis.
[*] Namely, (1) the literati, (2) agriculturists, (3) artisans, and
(4) merchants or tradesmen.
[+] The first sentence of the Analects or Confucian Gospels.
Riddles and word-puzzles are largely used for the purpose of killing
time, the nature of the written language offering unlimited facilities
for the formation of the latter. Chinese riddles, by which term we
include conundrums, charades, _et hoc genus omne_, are similar to our
own, and occupy quite as large a space in the literature of the
country. They are generally in doggerel, of which the following may be
taken as a specimen, being like the last a word-for-word
translation:--
Little boy red-jacket, whither away?
To the house with the ivory portals I stray.
Say will you come back, little red-coat, again?
My bones will return, but my flesh will remain.
In the present instance the answer is so plain that it is almost
insulting to our readers to mention that it is "a cherry," but this is
by no means the case with all Chinese riddles, many being exceedingly
difficult of solution. So much so that it is customary all over the
Empire to copy out any particularly puzzling conundrum on a paper
lantern, and hang it in the evening at the street door, with the
promise of a reward to any comer who may succeed in unravelling it.
These are called "lamp riddles," and usually turn upon the name of
some tree, fruit, animal, or book, the direction in which the answer
is to be sought being usually specified as a clue.
Were it only in such innocent pastimes as these that the Chinese
indulged, we might praise the simplicity of their morals, and contrast
them favourably with the excitement of European life. But there is
just one more little solace for leisure, and too often business hours,
of which we have not yet spoken. Gambling is, of course, the
distraction to which we allude; a vice ten times more prevalent than
opium-smoking, and proportionately demoralising in its effect upon the
national character. In private life, there is always some stake
however small; take it away, and to a Chinaman the object of playing
any game goes too. In public, the very costermongers who hawk cakes
and fruit about the streets are invariably provided with some means
for determining by a resort to chance how much the purchaser shall
have for his money. Here, it is a bamboo tube full of sticks, with
numbers burnt into the concealed end, from which the customer draws;
at another stall dice are thrown into an earthenware bowl, and so on.
Every hungry coolie would rather take his chance of getting nothing at
all, with the prospect of perhaps obtaining three times his money's
worth, than buy a couple of sausage-rolls and satisfy his appetite in
the legitimate way. The worst feature of gambling in China is the
number of hells opened publicly under the very nose of the magistrate,
all of which drive a flourishing trade in spite of the frequent
_presents_ with which they are obliged to conciliate the venal
official whose duty it is to put them down. To such an extent is the
system carried that any remissness on the part of the keepers of these
dens in conveying a reasonable share of the profits to his honour's
treasury, is met by _a brutum fulmen_ in the shape of a proclamation,
setting forth how "it having come to my ears that, regardless of law,
and in the teeth of my frequent warnings, certain evil-disposed
persons have dared to open public gambling-houses, be it hereby made
known," &c., &c., the whole document being liberally interspersed with
allusions to the men of old, the laws of the reigning dynasty, and
filial piety _a discretion_. The upshot of this is that within
twenty-four hours after its appearance his honour's wrath is appeased,
and croupiers and gamblers go on in the same old round as if nothing
whatever had happened.