Читать книгу The Historical Child - Oscar Chrisman - Страница 64

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"A Chinese baby is a round-faced little helpless human animal, whose eyes look like two black marbles over which the skin had been stretched, and a slit made on the bias. His nose is a little kopje in the center of his face, above a yawning chasm which requires constant filling to insure the preservation of law and order. On his shaved head are left small tufts of hair in various localities, which give him the appearance of the plain about Peking, on which the traveler sees, here and there, a small clump of trees around a country village, a home, or a cemetery; the remainder of the country being bare. These tufts are usually on the 'soft spot,' in the back of his neck, over his ears or in a braid or a ring on the side of his head."79

It was considered a deep disgrace if the children of a Chinese mother were not all born at the father's home, and in their efforts to have such occur women would do everything possible, even going to great inconvenience and hardship. If this should be the first baby and a boy, there would be great rejoicing in the whole household, but if a girl there would not only be no rejoicing but along with depression the young wife would be treated with coldness and often with harshness, and she might be beaten for her lack of discretion in not producing a son.

On the third day after birth, the child was washed for the first time. Friends and relatives were invited to take part and they brought presents to the child. Immediately after the washing, the ceremony of binding the wrists took place, which in some cases consisted of the tying of one or more ancient cash to each wrist by means of a red cotton cord while with others only a loose red string was put around each wrist. When the child was a month old, the mother and child left her room for the first time and the ceremony of naming the baby and shaving its head took place. All the relatives and friends were invited and they were expected to take dinner with the child, and, which was more important, to take presents.

"The presumption is that a Chinese child is born with the same general disposition as children in other countries. This may perhaps be the case; but either from the treatment it receives from parents or nurses, or because of the disposition it inherits, its nature soon becomes changed, and it develops certain characteristics peculiar to the Chinese child. It becomes t'ao ch'i. That almost means mischievous; it almost means troublesome—a little tartar—but it means, exactly t'ao ch'i. In this respect almost every Chinese child is a little tyrant. Father, mother, uncles, aunts, and grandparents are all made to do his bidding. In case any of them seems to be recalcitrant, the little dear lies down on his baby back on the dusty ground and kicks and screams until the refractory parent or nurse has repented and succumbed, when he gets up and good-naturedly goes on with his play and allows them to go about their business. The child is t'ao ch'i."80

The baby in China has its toys to play with and it also has its Mother Goose rhymes and Headland states that he collected more than six hundred of such rhymes.81 A few will be sufficient to give here to show their resemblance to our own. The following is as popular in China as "Jack and Jill" is here:

"He climbed up the candle-stick,

The little mousey brown,

To steal and eat tallow,

And he couldn't get down.

He called for his grandma,

But his grandma was in town,

So he doubled up into a wheel,

And rolled himself down."

This next one easily calls up "Lady bug, lady bug, fly away home:"

"Fire-fly, fire-fly,

Come from the hill,

Your father and mother

Are waiting here still.

They've brought you some sugar,

Some candy and meat,

Come quick or I'll give it

To baby to eat."

The following is said over the baby's toes very much as "This little pig went to market:"

"This little cow eats grass,

This little cow eats hay,

This little cow drinks water,

This little cow runs away,

This little cow does nothing,

Except lie down all day.

We'll whip her."

The Chinese loved their children and yet infanticide existed with them, but mostly only that of girls. The greatest cause was poverty. Being too poor to care for their children parents thought best to kill them than to sell them into slavery. This perhaps was not large over the whole country and existed to a great extent only in certain parts, sometimes as high as eighty per cent. of all girl babies born. The following conditions as given as found some time before the year 1840, shows its prevalence in certain districts at that time, as this refers to a small village on the Amoy island. "On a second visit, while addressing them, one man held up a child, and publicly acknowledged that he had killed five of the helpless beings, having preserved but two. I thought he was jesting, but as no surprise or dissent was expressed by his neighbors, and as there was an air of simplicity and regret in the individual, there was no reason to doubt its truth. After repeating his confession, he added with affecting simplicity, 'It was before I heard you speak on this subject, I did not know it was wrong; I would not do so now.' Wishing to obtain the testimony of the assembled villages, I put the question publicly, 'What number of female infants in this village are destroyed at birth?' The reply was, 'More than one-half.' As there was no discussion among them, which is not the case when they differ in opinion, and as we were fully convinced from our own observations of the numerical inequality of the sexes, the proportion of deaths they gave did not strike us as extravagant."82

It is difficult to judge this matter correctly when such contrary opinions are placed before us as in the following quotations, the first by an American who spent many years in China and the second by a Chinaman who spent many years in America. "Much has already been done by those who have had most opportunity to learn the facts, toward exhibiting the real practice of the Chinese in the matter of destroying female infants. Yet no more can be safely predicted than that this is a crime which to some extent everywhere prevails, and in some places to such a degree as seriously to affect the proportion of the sexes. It seems to be most common in the maritime provinces of the southern part of China, in some districts of which it is by the Chinese themselves regarded as a terrible and a threatening evil."83 "I am indignant that there should be a popular belief in America that Chinese girls at birth are generally put to death by their parents because they are not wanted. Nothing can be further from the truth. In a country like China, where women do not appear in public life, it must follow that sons are more to be desired, for the very good reason that family honor and glory depend on them and ancestral worship necessitates either the birth or adoption of sons to perpetuate it. I venture to say that in proportion to population and distribution of wealth that infanticide is as rare in China as it is in this country."84