Boys Gambling with Crickets.
A favorite amusement is the flying of kites. They are made of paper and silk, in imitation of birds, butterflies, lizards, spectacles, fish, men, and other objects; but the skill shown in flying them is more remarkable than the ingenuity displayed in their construction. The ninth day of the ninth moon is a festival devoted to this amusement all over the land. Doolittle describes them as sometimes resembling a great bird, or a serpent thirty feet long; at other times the spectator sees a group of hawks hovering around a centre, all being suspended by one strong cord, and each hawk-kite controlled and moved by a separate line. On this day he estimates that as many as thirty thousand people assemble on the hills around Fuhchau to join in this amusement if the weather be propitious. Many of the kites are cut adrift under the belief that, as they float off, they carry away with them all impending disasters.
Chinese Chess-board.
CHINESE CHESS.
The Chinese game of chess is very ancient, for Wu Wang (B.C. 1120) is the reputed inventor, and its rules of playing are so unlike the Indian game as to suggest an independent origin, which is confirmed by the peculiar feature of the kiai ho, or river, running across the board. There are seventy-two squares, of which eight are run together to form the river, leaving thirty-two on each side; but as the men stand on the intersection of the lines, there are ninety positions for the sixteen pieces used by each player, or twenty-six more than in the European game. The pieces are arranged for playing as in the diagram above.
The pieces are like chequer-men in shape, each of the seven kinds on each side having its name out on the top, and distinguished by its red or black colors. The four squares near each edge form the headquarters of the tsiang, or ‘general,’ out of which he and his two sz’, or ‘secretaries,’ cannot move. On each side of the headquarters are two elephants, two horses, and two chariots, whose powers are less than our bishop, knight, and castle, though similar; the chariot is the most powerful piece. In front of the horses stand two cannoniers, which capture like our knight but move like our castle. Five pao, soldiers or pawns, guard the river banks, but cannot return when once across it in pursuit of the enemy, and get no higher value when they reach the last row. Each piece is put down in the point where it captured its man, except the cannoniers; as the general cannot be taken, the object of each player is to check-mate him in his headquarters, therefore, by preventing his moving except into check. The want of a queen and the limited moves of the men restrict the combinations in the Chinese game more than in western chess, but it has its own elements of skill. Literary men and women play it much, and usually for small stakes. There is another game played less frequently but one of the most ancient in the Empire. It is called wei-kí, which may be rendered ‘blockade chess,’ and was common in the days of the sages, perhaps even earlier than chess. The board contains three hundred and twenty-four squares, eighteen each way, and the number of pieces is three hundred, though both the number of points and of pieces may be less than this size of the full game. The pieces are black and white and stand on the crossings of the lines, three hundred and sixty-one in number. The object of the opponents is to surround each other’s men and take up the crossings they occupy, or neutralize their power over those near them. Each player puts down a piece anywhere on the board, and continues to do so alternately, capturing his adversary’s positions until all the crossings are occupied and the game is ended.[388]
If this sketch of the customs and amusements of the Chinese in their social intercourse and public entertainments is necessarily brief, it is perhaps enough to exhibit their character. Dr. Johnson has well remarked that no man is a hypocrite in his amusements. The absence of some of the violent and gladiatorial sports of other countries, and of the adjudication of doubtful questions by ordeals or duels; the general dislike of a resort to force, their inability to cope with enemies of vastly less resources and numbers, and the comparative disesteem of warlike achievements, all indicate the peaceful traits of Chinese character. Duels are unknown, assassinations are infrequent, betting on horse-races is still to begin, and running amuck à la Malay is unheard of. When two persons fall out upon a matter, after a vast variety of gesture and huge vociferation of opprobrium, they will blow off their wrath and separate almost without touching each other. Some contrarieties in their ideas and customs from those practised among ourselves have frequently been noticed by travellers, a few of which are grouped in the following sketch: