The Chinese Boy and Girl | Page 4

as follows:
His mother jumped up on the window-sill, But the window had no crack, She then looked into the looking-glass, But the mirror had no back.
Then all at once she began to sing, But the song it had no end And then she played the monkey trick And to heaven she did ascend.
The moral teachings of nursery rhymes are as varied as the morals of the people to whom the rhymes belong. The "Little Mouse" already given contains both a warning and a penalty. The mouse which had climbed up the candle- stick to steal tallow was unable to get down. This was the penalty for stealing, and indicates to children that if they visit the cupboard in their mother's absence and take her sweetmeats without her permission, they may suffer as the mouse did. To leave the mouse there after he had repeatedly called for that halo-crowned grandmother, who refused to come, would have been too much for the child's sympathies, and so the mouse doubles himself up into a wheel, and rolls to the floor.
In other rhymes, children are warned against stealing, but the penalty threatened is rather an indication of the untruthfulness of the parent or nurse than a promise of reform in the child, for they are told that,
If you steal a needle Or steal a thread, A pimple will grow Upon your head.
If you steal a dog Or steal a cat, A pimple will grow Beneath your hat.
Boys are warned of the dire consequences if they wear their hats on the side of their heads or go about with ragged coats or slipshod feet.
If you wear your hat on the side of your head, You'll have a lazy wife, 'tis said. If a ragged coat or slipshod feet, You'll have a wife who loves to eat.
Those rhymes which manifest the affection of parents for children cultivate a like affection in the child. We have in the Chinese Mother Goose a rhyme called the Little Orphan, which is a most pathetic tale. A little boy tells us that,
Like a little withered flower, That is dying in the earth, I was left alone at seven By her who gave me birth.
With my papa I was happy But I feared he'd take another, But now my papa's married, And I have a little brother.
And he eats good food, While I eat poor, And cry for my mother, Whom I'll see no more.
Such a rhyme cannot but develop the pathetic and sympathetic instincts of the child, making it more kind and gentle to those in distress.
A girl in one of the rhymes urged by instinct and desire to chase a butterfly, gives up the idea of catching it, presumably out of a feeling of sympathy for the insect.
Unfortunately all their rhymes do not have this same high moral tone. They indicate a total lack of respect for the Buddhist priests. This is not necessarily against the rhyme any more than against the priest, but it is an unfortunate disposition to cultivate in children. There are constant sallies at the shaved noddle of the priest. They speak of his head as a gourd, and they class him with the tiger as a beast of prey.
Some of the rhymes illustrate the disposition of the Chinese to nickname every one, from the highest official in the empire to the meanest beggar on the street. One of the great men of the present dynasty, a prime minister and intimate friend of the emperor, goes by the name of Humpbacked Liu. Another may be Cross-eyed Wang, another Club-footed Chang, another Bald-headed Li. Any physical deformity or mental peculiarity may give him his nickname. Even foreigners suffer in reputation from this national bad habit.
A man whose face is covered with pockmarks is ridiculed by children in the following rhyme, which is only a sample of what might be produced on a score of other subjects:
Old pockmarked Ma, He climbed up a tree, A dog barked at him, And a man caught his knee, Which scared old Poxey Until he couldn't see.
A well-known characteristic of the Chinese is to do things opposite to the way in which we do them. We accuse them of doing things backwards, but it is we who deserve such blame because they antedated us in the doing of them. We shake each other's hands, they each shake their own hands. We take off our hats as a mark of respect, they keep theirs on. We wear black for mourning, they wear white. We wear our vests inside, they wear theirs outside. A hundred other things more or less familiar to us all, illustrate this rule. In some of their nursery rhymes everything is said and done on the "cart before the horse" plan. This is illustrated by a rhyme in which