[110] A very unjustifiable proceeding in Chinese eyes, unless driven to it by actual poverty.
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[111] The Chinese years are distinguished by the names of twelve animals—namely, rat, ox, tiger, hare, dragon, serpent, horse, sheep, monkey, cock, dog, and boar. To the common question, “What is your honourable age?” the reply is frequently, “I was born under the ——;” and the hearer by a short mental calculation can tell at once how old the speaker is, granting, of course, the impossibility of making an error of so much as twelve years.
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[112] Parents in China like to get their sons married as early as possible, in the hope of seeing themselves surrounded by grandsons, and the family name in no danger of extinction. Girls are generally married at from fifteen to seventeen.
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[113] This scene should for ever disabuse people of the notion that there is no such thing as “making love” among the Chinese. That the passion is just as much a disease in China as it is with us will be abundantly evident from several subsequent stories; though by those who have lived and mixed with the Chinese people, no such confirmation will be needed. I have even heard it gravely asserted by an educated native that not a few of his countrymen had “died for love” of the beautiful Miss Lin, the charming but fictitious heroine of The Dream of the Red Chamber.
Play-goers can here hardly fail to notice a very striking similarity to the close of the first act of Mr. W. S. Gilbert’s “Sweethearts.”
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[114] The semi-divine head of the Taoist religion, sometimes called the Master of Heaven. In his body is supposed to reside the soul of a celebrated Taoist, an ancestor of his, who actually discovered the elixir of life and became an immortal some eighteen hundred years ago. At death, the precious soul above-mentioned will take up its abode in the body of some youthful member of the family to be hereinafter revealed. Meanwhile, the present Pope makes a very respectable income from the sale of charms, by working miracles, and so forth; and only about two years ago he visited Shanghai, where he was interviewed by several foreigners.
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[115] Disembodied spirits are supposed to have no shadow, and but very little appetite. There are also certain occasions on which they cannot stand the smell of sulphur. Fiske, in his Myths and Myth-makers (page 230) says, “Almost universally, ghosts, however impervious to thrust of sword or shot of pistol, can eat and drink like Squire Westerns.”
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[116] See No. III., [note 45].
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[117] The Mu-hsiang or Costus amarus.
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[118] Strictly in accordance with Chinese criminal law.
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