The Chinese Boy and Girl | Page 6

the sacred books, which is so generally known as their nursery rhymes. These are understood and repeated by the educated and the illiterate alike; by the children of princes and the children of beggars; children in the city and children in the country and villages, and they produce like results in the minds and hearts of all. The little folks laugh over the Cow, look sober over the Little Orphan, absorb the morals taught by the Mouse, and are sung to sleep by the song of the Little Snail.
Sometimes however they, like children in other lands, are skeptical as to the reality of the stories told in the songs. Thus I remember once hearing our old nurse telling a number of stories and singing a number of songs to the little folk in the nursery. They had accepted one after another the legends as they rolled off the old woman's tongue, without question, but pretty soon she gave them a version of a Wind Song which aroused their incredulity. She sang:
Old grandmother Wind has come from the East. She's ridden a donkey--a dear little beast. Old mother-in-law Rain has come back again. She's come from the North on a horse, it is plain.
Old grandmother Snow is coming you know, From the West on a crane--just see how they go. And old aunty Lightning has come from the South, On a big yellow dog with a bit in his mouth.
"There is no grandmother Wind, is there, nurse?"
"No, of course not, people only call her grandmother Wind."
"Why do they call the other mother-in-law Rain?"
"I suppose, because mothers-in-law are often disagreeable,
just like rainy weather."
"And why do they speak of snow and the crane, and lightning and a yellow dog?"
"I suppose, because a crane is somewhat the color of snow, and a yellow dog swift and the color of lightning."
CHILDREN AND CHILD-LIFE
Before going to China, I could not but wonder, when I saw a Chinese or Japanese doll, why it was they made such unnatural looking things for babies to play with. On reaching the Orient the whole matter was explained by my first sight of a baby. The doll looks like the child!
Nothing in China is more common than babies. Nothing more helpless. Nothing more troublesome. Nothing more attractive. Nothing more interesting.
A Chinese baby is a round-faced little helpless human animal, whose eyes look like two black marbles over which the skin had been stretched, and a slit made on the bias. His nose is a little kopje in the centre of his face, above a yawning chasm which requires constant filling to insure the preservation of law and order. On his shaved head are left small tufts of hair in various localities, which give him the appearance of the plain about Peking, on which the traveler sees, here and there, a small clump of trees around a country village, a home, or a cemetery; the remainder of the country being bare. These tufts are usually on the "soft spot," in the back of his neck, over his ears, or in a braid or a ring on the side of his head.
The amount of joy brought to a home by the birth of a child depends upon several important considerations, chief among which are its sex, the number and sex of those already in the family, and the financial condition of the home.
In general the Chinese prefer a preponderance of boys, but in case the family are in good circumstances and already have several boys, they are as anxious for a girl as parents in any other country.
The reason for this is deeper than the mere fact of sex. It is imbedded in the social life and customs of the people. A girl remains at home until she is sixteen or seventeen, during which time she is little more than an expense. She is then taken to her husband's home and her own family have no further control over her life or conduct. She loses her identity with her own family, and becomes part of that of her husband. This through many years and centuries has generated in the popular mind a feeling that it is "bad business raising girls for other people," and there are not a few parents who would prefer to bring up the girl betrothed to their son, rather than bring up their own daughter.
"Selfishness!" some people exclaim when they read such things about the Chinese. Yes, it is selfishness; but life in China is not like ours--a struggle for luxuries--but a struggle, not for bread and rice as many suppose, but for cornmeal and cabbage, or something else not more palatable. This is the life to which most Chinese children are born, and parents can scarcely be blamed for preferring boys whose hands may help provide for their