Part 4

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 when the speaker heard a disturbance outside his door he discovered it was because a "dog had been bitten by a man." Of course, he at once rushed to the rescue. He "took up the door and he opened his hand." He "snatched up the dog and threw him at a brick." The brick bit his hand and he left the scene "beating on a horn and blowing on a drum."

Tongue twisters are as common in Chinese as in English, and are equally appreciated by the children. From the nature of such rhymes, however, it is impossible to translate them into any other language.

In one of these children's songs, a cake-seller informs the public in stentorian tones that his wares will restore sight to the blind and that

They cure the deaf and heal the lame, And preserve the teeth of the aged dame.

They will further cause hair to grow on a bald head and give courage to a henpecked husband. A girl who has been whipped by her mother mutters to herself how she would love and serve a husband if she only had one, even going to the extent of calling that much-despised mother-in-law her mother, and when overheard by her irate parent and asked what she was saying, she answers:

I was saying the beans are boiling nice And it's just about time to add the rice.

These are rather an indication of good cheer on the part of the children than lack of filial affection. A parent must be cruel indeed to make a girl willing to give up her mother for a mother-in-law.

Another style of verses comes under the head of pure nonsense rhymes. They are wholly without sense and I am not sure they are good nonsense. They are popular, however, with the children, and critics may say what they will, but the children are the last court of appeal in case of nursery rhymes. Let me give one:

There's a cow on the mountain, the old saying goes, On her legs are four feet, on her feet are eight toes. Her tail is behind on the end of her back, And her head is in front on the end of her neck.

The Chinese nursery is well provided with rhymes pertaining to certain portions of the body. They have rhymes to repeat when they play with the five fingers, and others when they pull the toes; rhymes when they take hold of the knee and expect the child to refrain from laughing, no matter how much its knee is tickled; rhymes which correspond to all our face and sense; rhymes where the forehead represents the door and the five senses various other things, ending, of course, by tickling the child's neck.

All of these have called forth rhymes among Chinese children similar to "little pig went to market," "forehead bender, eye winker," etc. The parent, or the nurse, taking hold of the toes of the child, repeats the following rhyme, as much to the amusement of the little Oriental as the "little pig" has always been to our own children:

This little cow eats grass, This little cow eats hay, This little cow drinks water, This little cow runs away, This little cow does nothing, Except lie down all day. We'll whip her.

And, with that, she playfully pats the little bare foot. If it is the hand that is played with the fingers are taken hold of one after another, as the parent, or nurse, repeats the following rhyme:

This one's old, This one's young This one has no meat; This one's gone To buy some hay, And this one's on the street.

There are various forms of this rhyme, depending upon the place where it is found. The above is the Shantung version. In Peking it is as follows:

A great, big brother, And a little brother, too, A big bell tower, And a temple and a show, And little baby wee, wee, Always wants to go.

The following rhyme explains itself: The nurse knocks on the forehead, then touches the eye, nose, ear, mouth and chin successively, as she repeats:

Knock at the door, See a face, Smell an odor, Hear a voice, Eat your dinner, Pull your chin, or Ke chih, ke chih.

Tickling the child's neck with the last two expressions.

We have in English a rhyme:

If you be a gentleman, As I suppose you be, You'll neither laugh nor smile With a tickling of your knee.

I had tried many months to find if there were any finger, face or body games other than those already given. Our own nurse insisted that she knew of none, but one day I noticed her grabbing my little girl's knee, while she was saying:

One grab silver, Two grabs gold, Three don't laugh, And you'll grow old.

There is no literature in China, not even in 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?"