CHAPTER IXFESTIVALS
Chineselife, which for many children is dull and full of work, has its red-letter days. No description of the little folk of the Middle Kingdom would be completewithout an account of some of the festivals, which add so much to the happiness of the year.
How the boys and girls look forward to New Year’s day! The houses are swept and tidied the night before. Inscriptions on bright red paper are pasted on the door-posts and lintels of each home. What a banging of guns and crackers there is, in the early morning, after the ancestors have been worshipped. The pavement is littered with red and white paper, wherever fireworks have been let off. A little later, the streets are full of people going to call on their friends, and say “I congratulate you, I congratulate you,” for this is the way in which the Chinese wish each other a Happy New Year.
The children are dressed in new clothes, their queues and little plaits of hair being tied with fresh red cord. They have new shoes and new hats and a handful of cash to rattle in their pockets. The babies are as gay as humming-birds, in bright coloured jackets and trousers, pussy-faced shoes, silver bangles, and wonderful embroidered crowns and collars.
The shops are closed, everyone is either resting or holiday-making. The streets are lined with gambling-boards. One hears the clatter of bamboo lot-sticks and the rattle of dice everywhere as one passes along. Boys and girls make for the cake man’s tray. They buy candy and fruit and toys; they jump and dance and play, and enjoy life hugely. The holidays continue for two weeks. There are plays and feasts in the evenings, and plenty of crackers are fired. The children wish that the fun might go on for ever. On the fifteenth of the month the holidays are closed by the festival of lanterns.
For several days before this feast the streets have been gay with beautiful lanterns of many shapes andsizes. Some are made of glass, with flowers and birds of paper pasted over them, or painted in bright colours. Some are made of crinkled paper, round like melons, or jar-shaped; others resemble fishes, lions, castles, rabbits, lotus flowers, white and red, tigers, dragons. They are all colours—red, green, white, blue, pink, yellow, purple. The kind which the little boys like best are ‘throwing-ball lanterns,’ which are made by pasting bits of different coloured paper on a frame of thin bamboo. Inside there is a tiny clay dish, filled with fat, into which a wick is stuck. When the evening is dark enough, out come the boys. They light their lanterns. Some have big tiger and fish lanterns, which move on wooden wheels, the fire shining through their eyes and bodies. Some prance along in a row, each with a bit of a long dragon on his shoulder. The first boy carries the head, and the last one has the tail. The dragon bobs and twists as they thread the crowded street. Some whirl their ‘ball lanterns’ round and round, by means of a string tied to the top. The wicks keep alight because the lump of fat does not run out of the socket as oil would do. The bright colours gleam as the light shines out, and the lanterns whirl flashing through the dark.
Then there is the spring festival, when troops of people go out of the east gate of the city to see the mandarins worship at an altar to the Earth God, which has the figure of a buffalo standing beside it. People throw things at the buffalo; whoever hits it is sure that he will have a prosperous year.
GOING TO VISIT HIS IDOL MOTHER
Then comes the Tsing-Ming, or feast of tombs, when schools have holiday. Steamed cake, brown and white, and vegetables rolled in pancakes are eaten in every house. People put the family graves in order. Sacrifices are made, paper money is strewed upon theearth and crackers are fired. Tiny boys are taken to the graves, that they may learn how to tend them, and present the offerings by and by when older. Boys, lads and young men line the banks of the river, or some other open space near the town or village, and throw stones at one another. The stones fly fast, dashing up spray where they strike the water. Now one side has the better in the fight, now the other. The game becomes serious indeed when someone is struck and the blood flows. Many people go to look on, believing that if the battle goes on until blood has been drawn, the village will be free of sickness during the year.
In some cities a children’s festival is held about the beginning of summer, when the little ones are carried to the temple of one of the goddesses and devoted to her. Those taken for the first time go through a little ceremony. Some money is paid to the nuns in charge of the temple, and the infants become the adopted children of the idol. After being adopted, the children go every year to the temple until the age of sixteen is reached, when they again pay a sum of money and give up attending. The little ones and their friends enjoy these festivals. From early until late, streams of people pour in by the city gates and flood the streets. The children are most gay, dressed in silk and satin. Some wear the robe, hat, belt and boots of an official; some wear delicate robes of green, blue, pink, crimson, apple-green; some have head-dresses embroidered with flowers and spangled with tiny mirrors; some wear antique crowns adorned with pheasants’ feathers; some are dressed as old men riding on water buffaloes to represent Lao-tsze on his journey to the west; others again are in uniform and képi, after the fashion of the new army.
Many of the children are mounted on horses, over which coloured cloths are thrown. The collar-bells chime and jingle as the animals are led along. The crush at the temple gates is great. The little people dismount, and with others who have been brought pick-a-back, are carried into the presence of the idols. Their parents buy red candles and offer long sticks of incense, and go through the temple making the children bow towards the altar. The horses are mounted once more and carry their gay riders home, where paper money is burnt and plays are acted. In spite of the fact that many children are stolen and lost, or become ill from heat and exposure at these festivals, the foolish people believe that the goddess takes special care of her adopted children.
The fifth day of the fifth moon is the dragon boat festival, when schoolboys present some cash to their teacher, and teachers give a fan with an inscription on it to each of their pupils. The children go with their friends to look at the dragon boats racing. They love to see the paddles splash in the water, to listen to the drums beating and the shouts of the rowers.
The mid-autumn festival comes in the eighth month, when scholars once more give money to their teachers, receiving moon cakes in return. In some districts the children build circular towers of broken tiles, and light fires inside them. Some of these towers are six feet across and several feet high, although the bits of tiles are laid one on the top of the other without cement.
In the eleventh month there is the winter festival, when ancestors are worshipped and feasts and plays are again enjoyed. There are many other holidays and feasts, as, for instance, on the birthdays of the idols, but those above mentioned are the chief festivalsto which the boys and girls look forward during the year.
Though Christian children do not join in idolatrous festivals, they have ‘ball lanterns’ to swing, and cakes to eat, and a good share of fun. When they learn to know and love the Saviour, they find true and lasting joy, better far than that which heathen boys and girls know.
Sunday is the Christian holiday, when the little ones wear bright clothes and join the happy throng which gathers at church. They love to sing the hymns and take part in the Bible services by answering questions and saying the golden text, chosen for each Sunday.