Part 10 (2/2)
repertory, but whilst they profess to be moved by a desire to entertain the ghosts, it is their own amus.e.m.e.nt and pleasure they are thinking about all the time. ”What would happen,” I asked a broad-faced, jolly-looking Chinaman, ”if the spirits were really to come and eat up the numerous dishes that you have laid out for their special benefit?”
”They would never have a chance of doing so again,” he promptly replied, ”for we should take very good care never to make any offerings to them again in the future.”
Whilst the great festivals provide large sources of recreation, there is one other form of amus.e.m.e.nt that to the Chinese is most popular and most fascinating, and that is theatricals. As these are expensive the common people would never be able to indulge in them were it not the custom to have them performed in the open air, where everybody that likes may come and look to their hearts' content, without being asked to contribute anything toward the expenses.
The birthday of an idol, for example, comes round, and to please it and its wors.h.i.+ppers, a troupe of actors are engaged, the stage is erected in the large open s.p.a.ce in front of the temple, and the performance is held where the G.o.d can keep its eye upon it, and the whole neighbourhood can be accommodated to witness the play. As the idol's birthday is everywhere known, there is no need to advertise, and so the people come trooping from all directions with the certainty of having a most enjoyable time, and of being made to forget the worries and cares of life in the living drama that is depicted with such wonderful power by these native actors.
A rich man wishes to celebrate his birthday, and of course to do that he must have a play. A feast there will be as well, but there would be no _eclat_ and no jollity and no letting the whole neighbourhood know of the happy event so well as can be done by having a good rousing performance by some well-known actors, whose fame has travelled far and near.
A stage is at once erected right in front of the great man's door, and the beating of a drum and the shrill notes of the fife advertise the neighbours that the troupe has arrived and is at the point of beginning to act. The news spreads like wildfire, and by the time the men have fairly begun, people may be seen streaming in from all directions to witness for nothing something that is inexpressibly dear to the Chinese heart.
And this is not something that is to last merely for an hour or two.
Chinese plays are not such trivial things that they can be finished off in so short a time as that. The men begin the production of some popular comedy at noon. They play on till the evening is drawing near, when there is an intermission of an hour or so for the actors and the people to cook their rice. By the time this is finished, night has set in and the work of the day is over. Great flaring lamps are lighted that defy the wind, the drums are beaten, the shrill musical instruments fill the air with their weird sounds, and men and women and children, carrying their own stools with them, hurry with beaming faces towards what might be figuratively called the ”Palace of Delights,” and take up their position in front of the stage to enjoy the scene that is going to be acted.
[Ill.u.s.tration: ACTORS IN COSTUME.
_To face p. 147._]
The hours pa.s.s by and the great lamps flare in the night wind, and the actors, as they get more and more into the spirit of the comedy they are performing, become filled with enthusiasm, and with impa.s.sioned gestures, and with the very voices and tones of the characters they are personating, keep their audience spellbound in their attention.
The hours still move on, but the interest never flags. The rapid strokes on the drum in some of the exciting scenes, and the shrill falsetto tones of the actors, and the bursts of laughter as the crowd is convulsed by the dry humour that runs through the piece, wake the silence of the night, and people living near by, who could not leave their homes, are startled out of their first sleep by the unwonted sounds that wake up the echoes of the night.
Midnight strikes, but there is no sign that the play is near its end, or that the audience dreams of moving from the uncomfortable seats that each one has extemporized for himself. The small hours begin to lengthen and it would seem time for the women at least to be in their homes. The stern and strict etiquette of the country forbids women to mingle with men, but when a play is being acted, etiquette is flung to the winds, and the wives and the young maidens sit on into unseemly hours, forgetful of the nation's ideals.
The wind becomes chiller and the darkness of the East deeper and denser, but still the merriment grows more fast and furious, when suddenly, as if with the wave of an enchanter's wand, a thin streak of light touches the border of the thick curtain that has fallen on the world, and ere long the dawn dyes the eastern sky with its colours and night begins to fly before the coming day.
This is the signal for the play to stop. The actors, weary with their long night's work, descend quickly from the stage, whilst the audience, with pale faces and worn looks, hurry away to their homes to cook their rice and prepare for a long sleep to make up for the loss of it during the night.
It has been a merry time for them all, and the blue feeling that had been gathering round their hearts and made them have long faces and caused them to be unpleasant in their homes, has vanished in the laughter that caused them almost to split their sides. A celebrated humorist has declared that if he could have but one laugh a month, the whole character of his life would be changed. During the pleasant hours in which the actors beguiled the time, they must have laughed scores of times, and the memory of those jokes will linger in their brains for many a week to come, and make them look on their sorry surroundings with a lighter and a more cheerful heart.
I have in the above mentioned the chief source of amus.e.m.e.nt, but I have by no means exhausted all that the Chinese have devised wherewith to while away the hours that would hang heavy on their hands. There are tops and kites, some of which represent birds fighting in the air, which old men with h.o.a.ry heads may now and again be seen flying as well as the younger generation. There is also the popular game of shuttlec.o.c.k, played not, however, with battledores, but with the sides of the soles of the shoes, and done so expertly that the shuttlec.o.c.k will be kept flying in the air for several minutes at a time. There is also Punch and Judy, and puppet shows that have a fascination about them because of the ingenious and marvellous way with which the operator causes the figures to imitate the motions of actual life, simply by a deft movement of the strings attached to their limbs.
Another and less informal way of getting amus.e.m.e.nt is in gossip and chatting with friends and neighbours. There is nothing stiff or formal about the Chinese. It requires very little introduction to make people acquainted with each other, and their powers of conversation are so great that with apparently nothing to say they are able to talk and laugh and spin yarns that make the time pa.s.s both rapidly and pleasantly.
The Chinese are a humorous and jolly race of people and absolutely misrepresented, excepting in their mere physical appearance, in the popular pictures that appear of them on the tea-chests and in facetious literature. If they had not been, they would not have borne the strain of thousands of years of dulness and poverty and fierce struggles for existence that have tried to crush all life out of them so well as they have done. The position that they hold to-day in the Far East is a signal proof of the vitality and the determined pluck that have carried the Yellow race through the revolutions[2] that during the past centuries have rent and shattered the Chinese Empire.
CHAPTER VIII
THE FARMER
Society divided into four cla.s.ses--Farmers stand high in the estimation of the nation--Poverty of the Chinese--Money lending and borrowing--Small farms--Cause of poverty--Sell daughters to meet debts--Farmers have to engage in various occupations to meet the necessities of life--Some become coolies--Some chair-bearers--Some emigrate--Chinese farmer second to none in the world--Implements few--His knowledge of manures--Description of rice culture--Tried by droughts--System of tenant farming--Method of paying their landlords.
In the four great divisions into which the Chinese have roughly divided the whole of society, viz. scholars, farmers, artisans, and traders, the one that holds the highest place for usefulness is undoubtedly the farmer.
The fact that the scholar is placed first shows the high estimation that the nation has always entertained for learning. This is not a modern idea that has gradually sprung up with the growth of civilization. It was started at the very dawn of the country's history, for the men that have really been the moulders and fas.h.i.+oners of the Empire were scholars whose writings still continue to influence the thoughts and habits of the people.
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