A Hunan man living at Hankow, and a Christian, was greatly troubled because his wife would bind their little girl's feet. At last he sent the child away to an American mission-school at a distance. While she was there, a great wave of anti-footbinding enthusiasm passed over the school, and all the girls unbound their feet, his daughter among them. When she came home, he was delighted to find her able to walk, and to stand on her feet, and with healthy, rosy cheeks. After a while, however, he became aware that each day she was walking worse, and that it must be that once more her mother was inflicting the torture of binding upon her, worse than ever now the girl was older. Yet they had so often gone over the matter together with always the same result, that he shrank from remonstrating with his wife, till one day in a neighbouring cottage a woman said: "A nice one you are to talk, you who are seeing your own daughter daily lamed before your eyes!" Then he went home, and said to his wife: "This thing must have an end. Not only have I the pain of seeing my daughter daily lamed, but I can no longer speak out for God; my mouth is stopped by your handiwork." His wife replied, as so often before: "If you will cut off your queue, I will unbind our daughter's feet—yes, and my own too." "Do you mean what you say?" he asked quietly. Again and again she repeated her declaration that they must conform to custom if he did, and that if he gave it up so would they; regarding it always as a thing impossible that he should part with that glory of a Chinaman, his long, glossy, plaited tail of hair. At last, when she had said it seven times, each time with increasing vehemence, her husband took up the large pair of Chinese scissors lying on the table, and there and then before her astonished eyes cut off his queue. The neighbours, in horror at what he had done, carried it off, and in high excitement proceeded to unroll it like a great black serpent at the feet of one of the missionaries, who at first thought the Hunan man must have been in such violent anger as to lose all control over himself, or he would never have done what he had. But the man explained that it was not in anger, but because he saw no other way to save his child, having all in vain tried argument and entreaty with his wife. "It is true it is contrary to the law of the land," he said; "but it is better I should offend against that than offend against my God." When I last saw him, he had the shock of upstanding hair, that generally indicates in a Chinaman a desire to add to his queue. His wife had unbound her feet, and their daughter's feet had never been bound again. When last heard of, the three had all been out for a walk together. But people must have lived in China to know what heroism this sacrifice of a pigtail really means. So far it has had no imitators, and other Chinese hearing of it remain simply astounded.
Before dismissing this subject of morals, it is as well to add that any Englishwoman marrying a Chinaman in England would do well to ascertain first that he was unmarried, which is most unlikely, as a Chinese father considers it a disgrace not to find a wife for his son so soon as he is marriageable. Further, that even where this is the case, the life that would lie before an English girl married to a Chinaman, if he were to take her into real Chinese life, is such as one does not like to contemplate: she must in any case prepare to become the servant of her mother-in-law. In December, 1898, there were, however, four young English girls, the youngest only seventeen, brought out by mail-steamers as the wives of Chinamen, and deserted in Shanghai, all without money, one even without clothes. Whilst sorry for the girls, I must own that in cases like this I feel more indignation against their parents than against the Chinamen. There is a degree of carelessness that seems worse than a crime.
CHAPTER XI.
SUPERSTITIONS.
Fung shui.—Devastating Eggs.—Demon Possession.—Sacred Trees.—Heavenly Silk.—Ladder of Swords.—Preserving only Children.—God of Literature on Ghosts.—God of War.—Reverence for Ancestors.
Directly that, leaving behind steamers, railways, and Sundays, you step ashore at Ichang, a thousand miles up the river Yangtse, you find yourself in the land of superstition. Right opposite to Ichang, facing it from across the river, stands a pyramidal mountain six hundred feet high, in all its proportions resembling the Pyramid of Cheops. The people of Ichang say it menaces them, and, according to their belief in Fung shui, or climatic influences (literally, wind and water), prevents their young men from passing their examinations, and makes all their wealth pass into the pockets of strangers. Just before I first arrived there in 1887, they had all taxed themselves, and built a many-storied temple on the top of the very highest hill behind the city, in order to keep the baleful pyramid in check; and the subject of conversation amongst the peasants at that period, when not discussing the price of something or their last bargain, was always whether that temple had been built on quite the right spot. "I always said it ought to be on that other knoll, and turned a little more aslant," one would say. However, though they have not yet grown rich, probably to be accounted for by some error of the kind, two of their young men the very next year after the building of this temple took their second degree—an event which had not gladdened the neighbourhood for hundreds of years.
ICHANG FROM THE CITY WALL, HALL OF LITERATURE, AND PYRAMID HILL.
By Mrs. Archibald Little.
It is very easy for us to laugh at Fung shui; but it often strikes me that far more foolish than the Chinese belief is the absolute disregard of climatic influences shown in England. When the huge block of Queen Anne Mansions was building, I recollect applying for south rooms; and noticing the late Mr. Hankey's expression as he jotted down a memorandum, I asked him what he had been writing. "Oh, only about five or six people have applied for south rooms," he said. "So I put you down as one of the eccentric lot. You'll find them hot, you know, in the season." I ventured to remark that the sun went northwards in summer; but Mr. Hankey was incredulous. Applying to a house agent in London for a small house with a south aspect, he said he really could not tell me of any off-hand, as he had never been asked for such a thing before, and had no notion how the houses on his list faced. But, stranger than this, when house-hunting with friends in the lovely Caterham district some years ago, we found that whenever we drove up to a house in high hopes, seeing it was situated on such an eminence as to command a really lovely view, we invariably found the house turned its back on the view, which often could not be seen from any of the windows. Although the Chinese in the course of centuries have made Fung shui into a superstition, surely their consideration of aspects, soils, water, etc., is wiser than our disregard of all such potent influences of nature? It is, however, always easier to laugh than to learn; and I see that I noted at the time:
"The other day, such a tumult here! It turned out that some of the neighbours disapproved of the gable-end just added to the servants' quarters of our new house. A number of old women insisted on dragging my husband into their houses to see. 'Look!' they said, 'your new gable points! and points straight at our shrine. It will ruin us.' Greatly amused, he straightway said, 'It shall be curled in another direction as soon as possible.' The old women were at once propitiated and delighted. But so far it has not yet been curled, and they seem to have forgotten all about it."