The Chinese Boy and Girl

by Isaac Taylor Headland

Of quite a different character are the jugglers with plates and bowls. Not only children, but many of a larger growth delight to watch these. Our only way of learning about them was to call them into our court as the Chinese call them to theirs, and that is what we did.

The performer first put a plate on the top of a trident and set it whirling. In this whirling condition he put the trident on his forehead where he balanced it, the trident whirling with the plate as though boring into his skull.

He next took a bamboo pole six feet long, with a nail in the end on which he set the plate whirling. The plate, of course, had a small indentation to keep it in its place on the nail. He raised the plate in the air and inserted into the first pole another of equal length, then another and still another, which put the plate whirling in the air thirty feet high.

Thus whirling he balanced it on his hand, on his arm, on his thumb, on his forehead, and finally in his mouth, after which he tossed the plate up, threw the pole aside and caught it as it came down. The old manager standing by received the pole, but as he saw the plate tossed up, he fell flat upon the earth, screaming lest the plate be broken.

This same performer set a bowl whirling on the end of a chop-stick. Then tossing the bowl up he caught it inverted on the chop-stick, and made it whirl as rapidly as possible. In this condition he tossed it up ten, then fifteen, then twenty or more feet into the air catching it on the chop-stick as it came down.

He then changed the process. He tossed the bowl a foot high, and struck it with the other chop-stick one, two, three, four or five times before it came down, and this he did so rapidly and regularly as to make it sound almost like music. There is a record of one of the ancient poets who was able to play a tune with his bowl and chop-sticks after having finished his meal. He may have done it in this way.

This trick seemed a very difficult performance. It excited the children, and some of the older persons clapped their hands and exclaimed, "Very good, very good." But when he tossed it only a foot high and let go the chop-stick, making it change ends, and catching the bowl, they were ready for a general applause. In striking the bowl and thus manipulating his chop-sticks, his hands moved almost as rapidly as those of an expert pianist.

"Can you toss the knives?" piped up one of the children who had seen a juggler perform this difficult feat.

The man picked up two large knives about a foot long and began tossing them with one hand. While this was going on a third knife was handed him and he kept them going with both hands. At times he threw them under his leg or behind his back, and at other times pitched them up twenty feet high, whirling them as rapidly as possible and catching them by the handles as they came down.

While doing this he passed one of the knives to the attendant who gave him a bowl, and he kept the bowl and two knives going. Then he gave the attendant another knife and received a ball, and the knife, the ball and the bowl together, the ball and bowl at times moving as though the former were glued to the bottom of the latter.