Part 5

"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 mouths, to girls who are only an expense.

The presumption is that a Chinese child is born with the same general disposition as children in other countries. This may perhaps be the case; but either from the treatment it receives from parents or nurses, or because of the disposition it inherits, its nature soon becomes changed, and it develops certain characteristics peculiar to the Chinese child. It becomes t'ao ch'i. That almost means mischievous; it almost means troublesome--a little tartar--but it means exactly t'ao ch'i.

In this respect almost every Chinese child is a little tyrant. Father, mother, uncles, aunts, and grandparents are all made to do his bidding. In case any of them seems to be recalcitrant, the little dear lies down on his baby back on the dusty ground and kicks and screams until the refractory parent or nurse has repented and succumbed, when he get up and good-naturedly goes on with his play and allows them to go about their business. The child is t'ao ch'i.

This disposition is general and not confined to any one rank or grade in society, if we may credit the stories that come from the palace regarding the present young Emperor Kuang Hsu. When a boy he very much preferred foreign to Chinese toys, and so the eunuchs stocked the palace nursery with all the most wonderful toys the ingenuity and mechanical skill of Europe had produced. As he grew older the toys became more complicated, being in the form of gramophones, graphophones, telephones, phonographs, electric lights, electric cars, cuckoo clocks, Swiss watches and indeed all the great inventions of modern times. The boy was t'ao ch'i, and the eunuchs say that if he were thwarted in any of his undertakings, or denied anything he very much desired, he would dash a Swiss watch, or anything else he might have in his hand, to the floor, breaking it into atoms; and as there was no chance of using the rod there was no way but to spoil the child.

It is amusing to listen to the women in a Chinese home when a baby comes. If the child is a boy the parents are congratulated on every hand because of the "great happiness" that has come to their home. If it is a girl, and there are more girls than boys in the family, the old nurse goes about as if she had stolen it from somewhere, and when she is congratulated, if congratulated she happens to be, she says with a sigh and a funereal face, "Only a 'small happiness'--but that isn't bad."

When a child is born it is considered one year old, and its years are reckoned not from its birthdays but from its New Year's days. If it has the good fortune to be born the day before two days old it is reckoned two years old being one year old when born and two years old on its first New Year's day.

The first great event in a child's life occurs when it is one month old. It is then given its first public reception. Its head is shaved amid kicking and screaming, its mother is up and around where she can receive the congratulations of her friends, its grandmother is the honored guest of the occasion, and the baby is named.

All the relatives and friends are invited and every one is expected to take dinner with the child, and, which is more important, to bring presents. If the family is poor, this day puts into the treasury of life a day of happiness and a goodly amount of filthy lucre. If the family is rich the presents are correspondingly rich, for nowhere either in Orient or Occident can there be found a people more lavish and generous in their gifts than the Chinese. All the family can afford is spent upon the dinner given on this occasion, with the assurance that they will receive in presents and money more than double the expense both of the dinner and the birth of the child. If they do not "come" they are expected to "send" or they "lose face." Among the middle-class, the presents are of a useful nature, usually in the form of money, clothing or silver ornaments which are always worth their weight in bullion.

The name given the child is called its "milk" name until the boy enters school. Whether boy or girl it may answer a good part of its life to the place it occupies in the family whether first, second or third.

If a girl she may be compelled to answer to "Little Slave," and if a boy to "Baldhead." But the names usually given indicate the place or time of birth, the hope of the parent for the child, or exhibit the parent's love of beauty or euphony.

A friend who was educated in a school situated in Filial Piety Lane and who afterwards lived near Filial Piety Gate called his first son "Two Filials." Another friend had sons whose names were "Have a Man," "Have a Mountain," "Have a Garden," "Have a Fish." In conversation with this friend about the son whose "milk" name was "Have a Man," I constantly spoke of the boy by his "school" name, the only name by which I knew him. The old man was perfectly blank--he knew not of whom I spoke, as he had not seen his son since he got his school name. Finally, as it began to dawn on him that I was talking of his son, he asked:

"Whom are you talking about?"

"Your son."

"Oh, you mean 'Have a Man.'"

This same man had a little girl called "Apple," not an ordinary apple, but the most luscious apple known to North China. I have as I write a list of names commonly applied to girls from which I select the following: Beautiful Autumn, Charming Flower, Jade Pure, Lucky Pearl, Precious Harp, Covet Spring; and the parent's way of speaking of his little girl, when not wishing to be self-depreciative, is to call her his "Thousand ounces of gold."

The names given to boys are quite as humiliating or as elevating as those given to girls. He may be Number One, Two or Three, Pig, Dog or Flea, or he may be like Wu T'ing Fang a "Fragrant Palace," or like Li Hung Chang, an "Illustrious Bird" or "Learned Treatise."