If the head of the house is a scholar he wears long robes of cotton or silk, blue and grey, one above the other, or in the hot weather white ‘grass cloth,’ thin as muslin. He has the top of his head shaved and wears his back hair in a long plait or queue. On New Year’s day or at other special times, he puts on a pointed hat, with a flossy red tassel, top-boots and a silk jacket on which is embroidered a stork or some other bird, to show his literary rank. An officer in the army would have a bear or some other fierce animal embroidered on his jacket instead of a bird.
In country homes a mill for taking the husk off rice stands inside the door, where perhaps you might expect to find a hatstand. Sometimes a sleek brown cow moos softly on the other side of the porch. Jars, full of salted vegetables, share the front court with the usual pigs, chickens and dogs. Look at that mandarin duck, bobbing her head and throwing forward her bill, as if trying to bring up a bone which had stuck in her throat just as she was in the act of curtsying to you. She bows and curtsies all day, until even the fat baby, lying on a kerb-stone at the edge of the court, grows tired of watching her antics.
Children run in and out of the house. One plays with a big, green grasshopper, which struggles hopelessly at the end of a string. Somewhere outside, a little boy or girl is sure to be leading a buffalo by a rope, on the edge of the rice fields. Farther away some boys and girls are gathering leaves, or cutting fern on the hillside.
About noon the household gathers for dinner. The men go to the kitchen and return with bowls of rice and sweet potatoes or vermicelli. In the middle of the table they have salted vegetables, bean-curd cake cut into small pieces, dried shrimps, and on feast days, pork hash in soy, all in different dishes. Each man has two pieces of bamboo, rather thicker than wooden knitting-needles, which he holds between the thumb and first three fingers of his right hand. With these chopsticks, as they are called, he picks up a bit of meat or vegetable and begins to eat it, but before it is swallowed he puts his bowl to his lips, and holding it there, pushes some rice or potatoes into his mouth. One mouthful follows another, and in no time the bowl is empty. Now you know how to answer the Chinese riddle: “Two pieces of bamboo drive ducks through a narrow door.” The ‘narrow door’ of course is a mouth, the ‘ducks’ are bits of pork and fish, the pieces of bamboo are chopsticks.
Sometimes the country people do not eat at a table, but sit in the shadow of the porch, or on the edge of the stone coping which surrounds the front court. The story is told of a poor boy, who used to eat his meals in this way. The stone on which he sat had a crack in it. When the boy began to study, he used to bring his book and a basin of food, so that he might read as he sat on the broken slab eating his dinner. By and by he became a great scholar and viceroy or ruler of the province of Szechuan. When he returned to his native place, full of riches and honour, he rebuilt the old home and made it beautiful, but he kept the broken kerb-stone unaltered, in front of the dining-room. It was left with the crack in it to remind him of the time when he was a barefoot boy and used to sit by the edge of the court, eating rice or learning his lessons.
When the men have finished their meal, the women and children have theirs. How the fat little boys and girls love sweet potatoes! They take them, pink and yellow skinned ones, in their chubby fingers and stuff them down their throats, dogs and chickens waiting eagerly meanwhile to pick up the skins and stringy bits which drop upon the ground.
Though eating apart, girls and women mix more freely with the men in these country homes than in those of educated townspeople, where they must keep to their own rooms at the back of the house. Into the homes of China, so different from each other in some things, so alike in others, the message of the Saviour’s love finds its way. Here one, there another—man, woman or child, believes the Gospel and begins to serve God. In spite of persecution and unkindness, the new convert remains faithful. By and by another member of the family is won: sometimes the whole household is changed, and the home becomes a Christian home.
CHAPTER IV
SCHOOL DAYS
The Chinese people think so much of learning that they say, “Better to rear a pig than bring up a son who will not read!”