“6th.—Girls are like gold, like gems. They ought to stay in their own house. If their feet are not bound they go here and go there with unfitting associates; they have no good name. They are like defective gems that are rejected.
“7th.—Parents are covetous. They think small feet are pleasing and will command a high price for a bride.”—On Foot-Binding, by Miss S. Woolston.
[return to footnote anchor 86]
[return to footnote 159]
[87] The disembodied spirits of the Chinese Inferno are permitted, under certain conditions of time and good conduct, to appropriate to themselves the vitality of some human being, who, as it were, exchanges places with the so-called “devil.” The devil does not, however, reappear as the mortal whose life it has become possessed of, but is merely born again into the world; the idea being that the amount of life on earth is a constant quantity, and cannot be increased or diminished, reminding one in a way of the great modern doctrine of the conservation of energy. This curious belief has an important bearing that will be brought out in a subsequent story.
[return to footnote anchor 87]
[return to footnote anchor 99]
[return to footnote anchor 127]
[88] Here again is a Taoist priest quoting the Buddhist commandment, “Thou shalt not take life.” The Buddhist laity in China, who do not hesitate to take life for the purposes of food, salve their consciences from time to time by buying birds, fishes, &c., and letting them go, in the hope that such acts will be set down on the credit side of their record of good and evil.
[return to text]
[89] This recalls the celebrated story of the fisherman in the Arabian Nights.
[return to text]
[90] Hu is the sound of the character for “fox;” it is also the sound of quite a different character, which is used as a surname.
[return to footnote anchor 90]
[return to footnote anchor 136]
[return to footnote anchor 216]
[91] The name of the Chinese type was Ch‘ên P‘ing. See Mayer’s Reader’s Manual, No. 102.
[return to text]
[92] At the date at which we are writing skill in archery is still de rigueur for all Manchus, and for those who would rise in the Chinese army. Only the other day the progressive Governor-General of the Two Kiang, Shên Pao-chên, memorialised the Throne with a view to the abandonment of this effete and useless form of military drill, and received a direct snub for his pains. Two hundred odd years ago, when the Manchus were establishing their power, the dexterity of their bowmen doubtless stood them in good stead; though if we are to judge of their skill then by the ordinary practice of to-day, as seen on any Chinese parade-ground, they could never have been more than very third-rate archers after all.
[return to text]
[93] Every Chinese man and woman inherits a family name or surname. A woman takes her husband’s surname, followed in official documents by her maiden name. Children usually have a pet name given to them soon after birth, which is dropped after a few years. Then there is the ming or name, which once given is unchangeable, and by which the various members of a family are distinguished. But only the father and mother and certain other relatives are allowed to use this. Friends call each other by their literary designations or “book-names,” which are given generally by the teacher to whom the boy’s education is first entrusted. Brothers and sisters and others have all kinds of nick-names as with us. Dogs and cats are called by such names as “Blackey,” “Whitey,” “Yellowy,” “Jewel,” “Pearly,” &c., &c. Junks are christened “Large Profits,” “Abounding Wealth,” “Favourite of Fortune,” &c., &c. Places are often named after some striking geographical feature; e.g., Hankow—“mouth of the Han river,” i.e., its point of junction with the Yang-tsze; or they have fancy names, such as Fuhkien—“happily established;” Tientsin—“Heaven’s ford;” or names implying a special distinction, such as Nanking—“southern capital;” Shan-tung—“east of the mountains,” &c.
[return to text]
[94] The name given by foreigners in China to the imitation of the ten torture-chambers of purgatory, as seen in every Ch‘êng-huang or municipal temple. The various figures of the devil-lictors and the tortured sinners are made either of clay or wood, and painted in very bright colours; and in each chamber is depicted some specimen of the horrible tortures that wicked people will undergo in the world to come. I have given in the [Appendix] a translation of the “Yü-li-ch‘ao,” a celebrated Taoist work on this subject, which should at any rate be glanced at by persons who would understand the drift of some of these stories.
[return to text]