CHINESE CHILDHOOD.
"I FORGOT to ask you, father," Leonard said, about a week later--for
during that time he and his sister had been otherwise engaged, and had
therefore not come to hear anything more about the Chinese and their
strange doings--"I forgot to ask you if Celestial boys wore pig-tails
too. I have never, I believe, seen a picture of a Chinese boy."
"Some have pig-tails, but some parents allow just a tuft of hair to grow
on a boy's head until he is eight or ten years old, and shave the rest.
Sometimes he wears the tuft longer; and I have also seen girls wearing
it on one or both sides of their heads."
"Father, will you tell us something now about the children?" Sybil then
asked.
"I know little babies of three days old often have their wrists tied
with red cotton cord, to which a charm is hung, which is, I suppose, to
bring it prosperity or drive away from it evil spirits. At a month old
its head is shaved for the first time, when, if its mother does not
shave it, a hair-dresser has to wear red in which to do it. A boy is
shaved before the ancestral tablet, but a girl before an image of the
goddess of children called 'Mother,' and thank-offerings are on this day
presented to the goddess."
"What does the ancestral tablet mean?"
"It consists of a piece of wood or stone, which is meant to represent
the dead. As I told you, one of the spirits of a dead man is supposed to
enter the tablet, and the more this is worshipped the happier the spirit
is supposed to be. On this tablet are names and inscriptions, which
sometimes represent several ancestors. After a certain time (I think the
fifth generation) the tablet is no longer worshipped, as by that time
the spirit is supposed to have passed into another body."
"Thank you. I understand that now," Sybil said. "Does anything else
happen on the grand shaving day?"
"Presents of painted ducks' eggs, cakes, and other things are sent to
the baby, and when it is four months old 'Mother' is thanked again, and
prayed to make the child grow fast, sleep well, and be good-tempered."
Sybil and Leonard laughed. "On this day the child also sits for the
first time in a chair, when his grandmother, his mother's mother, who
has to give him a great many presents, sends him some soft kind of
sugar-candy, which is put upon the chair, and when this has stuck the
baby is put upon it, and I suppose his clothes then stick to it also."
"What a fashion to learn to sit in a chair!" Leonard said. "And what's
done on his first birthday?"
"Another thank-offering is presented to 'Mother,' more presents come,
and the baby has to sit in front of a number of things, such as ink,
pens, scales, pencils, tools, books, fruit, gold, or anything the
parents like to arrange before him, and whatever he catches hold of
first will show them what his future character or occupation is likely
to be.
[Illustration: YUEN-SHUH, A LITTLE STUDENT.]
"But the worst part has now to come. As soon as the poor little fellow
can learn anything, he is taught to worship 'Mother' and other idols,
before which he has to bow down, and raise up his little hands, whilst
candles and incense are burnt in their honour. So it is no wonder that
as he grows older he learns his lesson thoroughly. At sixteen children
are supposed to leave childhood behind them, and there is a ceremony for
this."
"Do Chinese girls learn lessons? or is it only the boys?"
"In some parts of China there are, I believe, a few schools for young
ladies, and instruction is given to them by tutors at home; but although
two or three Chinese ladies have been celebrated for great literary
attainments, these are quite the exceptions, and there are only a very
few schools for any girls in China, except the mission schools. Those
for boys abound all over the country."
"Did you ever go into a boy's school, father?"
"Yes, into several, where I saw many a little intelligent-looking boy
working very hard at his lessons. One little boy, named Yuen-Shuh, told
me that he meant to get all the literary honours that he could. Chinese
boys are not allowed to talk at all in school-hours. Each boy has a desk
at which to sit, which is so arranged that he cannot speak to the boy
next to him. Little Yuen-Shuh had been to school since he was six years
old.
"Another boy was saying a lesson when I went in, and therefore standing
with his back to his teacher. Boys always say their lessons like this,
and it is called 'backing the book.' The teacher, as they repeat their
lessons, puts down their marks. When learning their lessons they repeat
them aloud. There are higher schools into which older boys pass, and the
great aim of the Chinese is to take literary honours, as nothing else
can give them a position of high rank; but even a peasant taking these
honours would rank as a gentleman."
"Will you take me to see a school in China?" Leonard then asked.
[Illustration: A CHINESE SCHOOL.]
His father, having promised to do so, went on to say to Leonard:
"Parents are very particular as to their choice of a schoolmaster, who
must be considered good, as well as able to teach; and to qualify
himself the master must, of course, know the doctrines of the ancient
sages. After all has been settled for a boy to go to school, the parents
always invite the schoolmaster to a dinner, given expressly for him.
Then a fortune-teller is asked to decide upon a 'lucky' day for the boy
to make his first appearance at school, when he takes the tutor a
present. No boy ever goes to school first on the anniversary of the day
on which Confucius died or was buried. On entering school, he turns to
the shrine of Confucius--an altar erected to his honour in every
school--and worships him, after which he salutes his teacher very
respectfully, hears what he has to do, and goes to his desk."
"And are there many holidays at Chinese schools?"
"At the new year and in the autumn there are always holidays, but
children also go home to keep all religious festivals, to celebrate the
birthdays of parents and grandparents, to worship their tablets, and at
the tombs of ancestors. Very often schoolmasters are men who have toiled
very hard at their books, and yet have not succeeded in taking a very
high degree, but sometimes having done so, they choose teaching for
their profession. Children are very much punished in China when they
break school-rules. Perhaps the punishment they fear most is to be
beaten with a broom, because they think that this may make them unlucky
for the rest of their lives."
"And they can never have an alphabet to learn," Sybil said, "when they
first go to school, as there is not one."
[Illustration: A VILLAGE SCHOOLMASTER.]
"No; instead of letters and words, they have to learn, and master,
characters. In some schools children learn names first; in others they
have reading lessons, where all the sentences consist of three
characters. As soon as possible they are set to learn the classic on
'Filial Piety.'"
"Now, father, will you please describe a Chinese house to us?"
"Those of the richer classes are surrounded by a high wall, and composed
of a number of rooms, generally on one floor. In large cities some
houses have another storey; but the Chinese think it 'unlucky' to live
above ground."
"The Chinese seem to think everything either lucky or unlucky," Sybil
said; "it does seem silly. I do not wonder that you always told me not
to say that word. I don't think I shall ever want to say it again now;
and I used to say it rather often, usen't I? But I did not mean to
interrupt you, so please go on now."
"Some houses are very large, which they have to be, in order to
accommodate several branches of the same family, who often live together
in different parts of them.
"There are generally three doors of entrance to a house, of which the
principal, in the centre, leads to the reception hall, into which
visitors are shown. I have seen the walls of rooms hung with white silk
or satin, on which sentences of good advice were written. All sorts of
beautiful lanterns hang from the sitting-room ceilings, sometimes by
silk cords. The furniture consists principally of chairs, tables, pretty
screens and cabinets, with many porcelain ornaments, and fans are very
numerous in a Chinese household. Most houses have very beautiful
gardens; even the poor try to have their houses surrounded by as much
ground as possible. Many houses also have verandahs, where the Chinaman
likes to smoke his evening pipe. Indeed, women, even ladies, smoke pipes
in China. I have a picture of a verandah scene in the south of China."
"Are these people rich or poor?" Sybil asked.
"Certainly not rich, but also not very poor."
"You were saying the other day, father, that Chinese people smoke
something else besides tobacco?" Leonard then asked.
"Opium."
"What is opium?"
"The juice of the poppy, which, after being made into a solid form, is
boiled down with water."
"Why did you say that opium-smoking was so dreadful?"
"You shall hear all about it, and then judge for yourself. The
opium-smoker, whilst engaged with his pipe, thinks of, and cares for,
nothing else in the whole world besides, and generally lies down to give
himself up to its more full enjoyment. Holding his pipe over the flame
of a small oil-lamp beside him, he lights the opium, and then gently
draws in the vapour which proceeds from it. Sometimes people smoke in
their own houses, and sometimes they resort to horrid places regularly
set apart for opium-smoking. In Hong-Kong, where we are going, there
will be many an opium-smoker who will buy this drug in quantities when
he cannot even afford to purchase clothing.
[Illustration: FAMILY SCENE--AFTER DINNER]
"If a man make a practice of smoking opium at stated times, even should
these times not be very frequent, he so acquires the habit of smoking,
that if, when the pipe be due it is not forthcoming, he is quite
unable to do his work, and wastes all his time thinking of and longing
for his pipe. The habit is sometimes acquired in less than a fortnight.
Opium may first be taken in a small quantity to cure toothache; the
small quantity leads to large quantities; the large quantities, or even
small ones taken regularly, lead at last to the man becoming an habitual
opium-smoker: and this means that the victim's health becomes injured,
and that he is unfit for any work. If he then leave off his opium, he
becomes ill, has dreadful pain, which sometimes lasts till he smokes
again; he has no appetite for food, cannot sleep at night, and looks
haggard and miserable. Sometimes if opium cannot be procured by him he
dies.
"And these men make themselves slaves for life to this horrid drug,
knowing before they touch it what it will do for them.
"Opium-smoking makes rich men poor, honest men thieves, and poor people
even sell their children to obtain the drug."
"And can't they be cured, father?" Sybil asked.
"Medical aid has been brought in to help them, but it generally fails;
and every now and then we hear of an opium-smoker becoming a Christian
and then overcoming the vice, but this is also very rare indeed. And
what does this teach us, children?"
They thought. "Never to acquire bad habits, I suppose," said Sybil, "for
fear they should grow upon us."
[Illustration: HABITUAL OPIUM-SMOKERS.]
"Yes; and because they do grow upon us. Everything to which we very much
accustom ourselves grows into a habit; therefore it is so very important
for both Chinese and English, for both grown-up and little people, to
cultivate good habits. And more especially is this important in the case
of young people, because so many of our habits, which remain with us and
influence our whole after-life, are formed in our childish days."
"And do people really sell their children?"
"They do, indeed; and some children are so filial that they will even
sell themselves for the good of their parents. There is very little that
a Chinaman will not do for a parent. One of their superstitions is that
if a father or mother be ill, and the child should cut away some of its
own flesh to mix in the parent's medicine, a cure would be effected; and
children have been known to cut pieces, for this purpose, out of their
own arms."
"What would happen," Sybil asked, "if a child were to do anything very
dreadful to a parent in China?"
"If a son kill a parent, he is put to death, his house is torn down, his
nearest neighbours are punished, and his schoolmaster is put to death;
the magistrate of the district would also suffer, and the governor of
the province would go down in rank."
"How unfair!" Leonard exclaimed, "when only one person did it."
"Why does all that happen?" Sybil asked.
"To show how great the man's sin is. The schoolmaster is punished
because it is thought that he did not bring up his pupil properly. Of
course, it is very unfair, but the Chinese are often very cruel in their
chastisments, and many criminals prefer death to some of the other
punishments. A great many also suffer capital punishment; sometimes as
many as ten thousand people in a year."
"Then, when children do wrong, their parents and schoolmasters are
blamed?"
"Very often their faults are attributed to their bringing-up."
"Oh! oughtn't we to be careful, then, Leonard? Fancy when we do wrong
people blaming father or mother!"
Leonard was then very anxious to hear more about Chinese punishments, so
his father told him an occurrence that he had once witnessed.
"A very usual way of punishing small offences," he began, "is by beating
with a bamboo; and whenever a mandarin finds that any one, under his
jurisdiction, has transgressed, he can use the bamboo. Parents use it on
their children even when they are thirty years of age. The poor Chinese
culprits used to be subject to very horrible tortures, such as having
their fingers or ankles squeezed until they made confession; but I
believe a good many of the worst tortures have now been done away with.
One in common use is the canque, which is a collar made of heavy wood,
with a hole in the centre for the head to come through. It is fastened
round the neck, and is worn from one to three months, preventing its
prisoner from lying down day or night. The captive remains in the street
instead of in prison, and is dependent upon his friends to feed him."
"What a shame!" Leonard said. "I'd like to be a magistrate in China, to
put that sort of cruelty down."
[Illustration: A CHINESE COURT OF LAW.]
[Illustration: CHINESE PUNISHMENT.]
"But now I am coming to a trial that I witnessed myself. I remember, as
I went into the Provincial Criminal Court, one day, seeing the judge
sitting behind a large table, covered with a red cloth. Secretaries,
interpreters, and turnkeys stood at each end of the table, only the
judge having a right to sit down. Soon after I arrived the prisoner was
led in by a chain who immediately threw himself down on the ground
before the judge. The crime brought against him was robbing an official
of high rank. It was thought that he could not have committed the
robbery alone, and was asked how it was effected, and who were his
accomplices. He would not say. Then he was beaten; but still this
brought no answer. Both an arm and a leg were then put into a board,
which made it almost impossible for him either to walk, or sit, or
stand. His poor back must have ached terribly; and while one man dragged
him along by a chain, another held a whip to urge him forward.
"And he had never committed the robbery after all, but gave himself up
in place of his father, a man named Wang-Yangsui, who was really the
culprit."
Tears were in Sybil's eyes as she listened.
[Illustration: POOR OLD WANG-YANGSUI IN THE CAGE.]
"And he suffered all that?" she said.
"Sons have been known to allow themselves to be transported to save
their parents, and then only to have felt that they did their duty."
"And in this case was the real culprit ever found out?"
"Yes; the father, moved with compassion for his boy, gave himself up."
"And did they not let him off," Leonard asked, "as the son had suffered
so much for him?"
"No; they put him into a cage in which were holes for his head and feet,
but in which he could neither sit down nor stand upright. Round the cage
was an inscription relating the nature of his crime."
"How long was he left there?"
"That I was not able to hear, but the day he was incarcerated I saw his
daughter feeding him with chop-sticks. These, which consist of two
sticks that people hold in the same hand wherewith to feed themselves,
instead of knives and forks, the Chinese always use when they eat. She
must have found it difficult to get to him, as she was carrying a
basket, as well as a baby on her back, for she had small feet, and women
with small feet cannot walk any distance, even without a load at all. It
is not the rule for lower class girls to have their feet made small,
though in some cases it is done. This woman had once been better off."
"Why do Chinese ladies have small feet?" Leonard asked.
"But, father," Sybil put in, "please tell us first what became of that
poor old man. I am so sorry he stole."
"I heard that great poverty had tempted him to do so, but that he
afterwards bitterly repented of the crime which he had committed. How
long he remained in the cage I was never able to ascertain; but I really
think now that we must close our 'Peep-show' for to-day."
"After we've heard about the small feet ladies, father. I think you have
just time for that."
"The feet of Chinese women would be no smaller than, perhaps not as
small as, other women's feet, were they not compressed."
"What does that mean?"
"Made smaller by being pressed."
"How painful it must be!"
"So it is. When very young, a little girl's foot is tightly bandaged
round, the end of the bandage being first laid on the inside of the
foot, then carried round the toes, under the foot, and round the heel
till the toes are drawn over the sole, in which an indentation becomes
made and the instep swells out. After a time the foot is soaked in hot
water, when some of the toes will occasionally drop off. Every time the
bandage is taken away another is put on, and tied more tightly. For the
first year there is, as we can imagine, dreadful pain, but after two
years the foot will become dead and cease to ache. You can therefore
understand that it is very uncomfortable for Chinese ladies to walk, and
if they go any distance they are carried on the backs of their female
slaves."
"Are all Chinese parents so silly as to have their little girls' feet
bandaged?"
"A few are strong-minded enough to break through the rule, and all the
Tartar ladies have natural feet. Anti-foot-binding societies have now
been formed by the Chinese gentry in Canton and Amoy."
"I wonder what made people first think of doing this?" Sybil said.
"Some people think that it was first done to help husbands to keep their
wives at home; others say that it was to copy an Empress who had a
deformed foot which she bandaged; but whatever the reason may have
been, we cannot but wish very, very strongly, that the cruel custom
might be soon completely done away with!"
"I shall like to see the ladies being carried on their slaves' backs,"
Leonard said. "That will be fun!"
"You will soon see it now," was his father's answer, "for we have been
six weeks at sea, and the captain says we may expect to be at Shanghai
in another ten days' time, so I think I had better not tell you any
more, and let you find out the rest for yourselves."
"I think we might have just one more 'Peep-show,'" Sybil replied, "and
hear how we get our tea-leaves. I think we ought to know about that
before we arrive."
The missionary smiled, and the next time his children wanted a
"Peep-show" very much, only a very little persuasion was required to
make him sit down between them and let them have it.
[Illustration]
[Illustration]