Sidelights on Chinese Life

by J. Macgowan

With very young children this is all the more remarkable since so little is provided for their amusement. Such things as pictures or story-books or toys in the large and profuse sense with which our nurseries are supplied in England, do not exist in this land. Childhood is left very much to its own resources to find out the means of passing the time pleasantly. It is pathetic to watch how, with the fewest and simplest materials, the little ones will pass the day, with apparently perfect contentment. The method most popular, because it involves no expense, is the making of mud pies, and the building of miniature houses with broken pieces of tiles that can be picked up from the streets.

The parents never seem to consider it a part of their duty to suggest means of recreation for their children. The mothers are intensely ignorant and slovenly, and are too occupied with their household duties to have any time to devote to the education or amusement of their little ones, and so they are allowed to grow up very much as nature or their surroundings mould them, until the time has arrived, for the boys at least, when they must enter school, and come under the discipline of a school-master.

It is interesting at this point to consider what are the moral restraints that are at the command of the parents to train up their children to be good and honest citizens of the Empire. Apart from the natural conscience which no amount of heathenism can entirely eradicate, and the lofty ideals which their sages and teachers in olden times sent forth as beautiful spirits to permeate and wander through succeeding generations, the family has no influence whatsoever in guiding the little ones into a noble and virtuous life.

How could one expect that it should? There is absolutely no religion in it, for the occasional worship of the idols, when some favour is requested from them or some sorrow to be averted, has no moral effect upon a single member of the home. The idols are supposed to be mysterious forces that have great power in the supernatural world, who have to be bribed and coaxed not to send down evil upon men, for whom in their inmost hearts it is believed that they have a natural antipathy. They are never appealed to as loving or caring for men. There is nothing that will bring a smile over the yellow face sooner than to ask a man if the idols love men. It is a question that is so brimming over with fun to a Chinaman that it is irresistible in its effects, and the soberest face will be wreathed with smiles whenever it is put.

There is no Bible, of course, and not a single book in the home, and if there were the mothers could not read them. It will be seen, then, that the machinery in the West for the training of the children does not exist out here. There is no God, no churches, no Sunday or Sunday schools, no pictures, and no special literature to influence the minds of the young to withstand the evil forces that grow rank and wild all around them in whatever grade of society they may happen to be.

It may be said without any exaggeration that it is in the home that the children learn the evils that cling to them all their lives, and that it is the mothers that are the principal teachers of them. Lying, for example, as a fine art is one that is indoctrinated by the mothers’ example. It is upon it that they mainly depend for the governing of their children. As a rule there is no proper discipline in the home, and no attempt made to make the children obey promptly any order that is given. The result is that the mother, who has most to do with them, depends largely upon loud-voiced threatenings and an occasional beating when her passion gets the control over her, though this latter is rare, since the Chinese parents really love their children, and seldom resort to this severe method of curbing the unruly or high spirits of their offspring.

The great weapon in her armoury in the earlier days of her children’s lives is a technical expression that is known in every family of “Deceiving the Children.” One day a visitor called upon a family with which he was acquainted. The lady of the house was in and so also was her little son of four or five years of age, a bright, interesting child, with snapping black eyes, and as full of life as a healthy child could be.

During the conversation the child got restless and was inclined to get into mischief. He was approaching a corner of the room, when his mother called out in a loud, excited voice, “Don’t go there, there is a huge rat waiting for you, that will pounce out upon you, and tear out your eyes.” The little fellow, with terror depicted upon his face and with an agonized cry, made a bee-line to the opposite side of the room, and crouched near his mother in the most abject terror.

After a while, having nothing to do, he began to move about in what his mother considered forbidden paths, when once more, with a shriek that had assumed a natural look of alarm, she shouted in her loudest tones, “Come away quickly, don’t go there; there is a black snake hiding in the corner. It will bite you, and you will die in a few minutes.” Again a wild look of horror on the little fellow’s face, and a sudden rush to his mother’s side to escape the deadly serpent that was lying in wait for him, and sobs of agony broke from him as he clung to her for protection.

After a while he once more, with the restlessness of childhood, began to move about in search of something to amuse himself with, and was once more getting on ground that his mother considered unsafe, when again, with red, excited face and shrill tones she yelled out, “Why do you go there? Don’t you know there is a devil hiding round the corner that has a great love for the flesh of a young boy, and he will seize you and devour you, and crunch your bones with his great teeth?”