The Chinese Boy and Girl E-Book

Isaac Taylor Headland

• Herausgeber: Booksell-Verlag
• Kategorie: Für Kinder und Jugendliche
• Sprache: Englisch

Veröffentlichungsjahr: 2019

Beschreibung

In "The Chinese Boy and Girl," Isaac Taylor Headland offers a poignant exploration of childhood in early 20th-century China, capturing the intricate tapestry of cultural norms, family dynamics, and the impact of modernization on traditional values. Through evocative prose and engaging storytelling, Headland immerses readers in the lives of two children as they navigate the dual pressures of contemporary influences clashing with age-old customs. The narrative is characterized by its rich descriptive language and keen observations, situating the book within both the literary traditions of travel literature and socio-cultural commentary prevalent at the time. Isaac Taylor Headland, an American educator and missionary, possessed a profound understanding of Chinese culture, having spent significant time in China. His experiences in the region inform his narrative, allowing for an authentic representation of the nuances of Chinese childhood and the societal shifts occurring during his tenure. Headland's background illuminates his motives for writing the book, reflecting his commitment to fostering cross-cultural understanding and appreciation between East and West. Recommended for readers seeking historical context, cultural insight, or an emotional journey through childhood, "The Chinese Boy and Girl" is a compelling account that transcends geographical boundaries. Headland'Äôs work is not only a literary artifact but also a testament to the richness of Chinese heritage, making it essential reading for those intrigued by cultural studies, history, and the universality of childhood.

Leseprobe

Isaac Taylor Headland

The Chinese Boy and Girl

Published by Good Press, 2022

[email protected]

EAN 4057664590572

Table of Contents

PREFACE

THE NURSERY AND ITS RHYMES

CHILDREN AND CHILD-LIFE

GAMES PLAYED BY BOYS

GAMES PLAYED BY GIRLS

THE TOYS CHILDREN PLAY WITH

BLOCK GAMES—KINDERGARTEN

CHILDREN'S SHOWS AND ENTERTAINMENTS

JUVENILE JUGGLING

STORIES TOLD TO CHILDREN

Author of Chinese Mother Goose Rhymes

PREFACE

Table of Contents

No thorough study of Chinese child life can be made until the wall of Chinese exclusiveness is broken down and the homes of the East are thrown open to the people of the West. Glimpses of that life however, are available, sufficient in number and character to give a fairly good idea of what it must be. The playground is by no means always hidden, least of all when it is the street. The Chinese nurse brings her Chinese rhymes, stories and games into the foreigner's home for the amusement of its little ones.

Chinese kindergarten methods and appliances have no superior in their ingenuity and their ability to interest, as well as instruct. In the matter of travelling shows and jugglers also, no country is better supplied, and these are chiefly for the entertainment of the little ones.

To the careful observer of these different phases it becomes apparent that the Chinese child is well supplied with methods of exercise and amusement, also that he has much in common with the children of other lands. A large collection of toys shows many duplicates of those common in the West, and from the nursery rhymes of at least two out of the eighteen provinces it appears that the Chinese nursery is rich in Mother Goose. As a companion to the "Chinese Mother Goose," this book seeks to show that the same sunlight fills the homes of both East and West. If it also leads their far-away mates to look upon the Chinese Boy and Girl as real little folk, human like themselves, and thus think more kindly of them, its mission will have been accomplished.

THE NURSERY AND ITS RHYMES

Table of Contents

It is a mistake to suppose that any one nation or people has exclusive right to Mother Goose. She is an omnipresent old lady. She is Asiatic as well as European or American. Wherever there are mothers, grandmothers, and nurses there are Mother Gooses,—or; shall we say, Mother Geese—for I am at a loss as to how to pluralize this old dame. She is in India, whence I have rhymes from her, of which the following is a sample:

Heh, my baby! Ho, my baby! See the wild, ripe plum, And if you'd like to eat a few, I'll buy my baby some.

She is in Japan. She has taught the children there to put their fingers together as we do for "This is the church, this is the steeple," when she says:

A bamboo road, With a floor-mat siding, Children are quarrelling, And parents chiding,

the "children" being represented by the fingers and the "parents" by the thumbs. She is in China. I have more than 600 rhymes from her Chinese collection. Let me tell you how I got them.

One hot day during my summer vacation, while sitting on the veranda of a house among the hills, fifteen miles west of Peking, my friend, Mrs. C. H. Fenn, said to me:

"Have you noticed those rhymes, Mr. Headland?"

"What rhymes?" I inquired.

"The rhymes Mrs. Yin is repeating to Henry."

"No, I have not noticed them. Ask her to repeat that one again."

Mrs. Fenn did so, and the old nurse repeated the following rhyme, very much in the tone of, "The goblins 'll git you if you don't look out."

He climbed up the candlestick, 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.

I asked the nurse to repeat it again, more slowly, and I wrote it down together with the translation.

Now, I think it must be admitted that there is more in this rhyme to commend it to the public than there is in "Jack and Jill." If when that remarkable young couple went for the pail of water, Master Jack had carried it himself, he would have been entitled to some credit for gallantry, or if in cracking his crown he had fallen so as to prevent Miss Jill from "tumbling," or even in such a way as to break her fall and make it easier for her, there would have been some reason for the popularity of such a record. As it is, there is no way to account for it except the fact that it is simple and rhythmic and children like it. This rhyme, however, in the original, is equal to "Jack and Jill" in rhythm and rhyme, has as good a story, exhibits a more scientific tumble, with a less tragic result, and contains as good a moral as that found in "Jack Sprat."

It is as popular all over North China as "Jack and Jill" is throughout Great Britain and America. Ask any Chinese child if he knows the "Little Mouse," and he reels it off to you as readily as an English-speaking child does "Jack and Jill." Does he like it? It is a part of his life. Repeat it to him, giving one word incorrectly, and he will resent it as strenuously as your little boy or girl would if you said,

Jack and Jill Went DOWN the hill

Suppose you repeat some familiar rhyme to a child differently from the way he learned it and see what the result will be.

Having obtained this rhyme, I asked Mrs. Yin if she knew any more. She smiled and said she knew "lots of them." I induced her to tell them to me, promising her five hundred cash (about three cents) for every rhyme she could give me, good, bad, or indifferent, for I wanted to secure all kinds. And I did. Before I was through I had rhymes which ranged from the two extremes of the keenest parental affection to those of unrefined filthiness. The latter class however came not from the nurses but from the children themselves.

When I had finished with her I had a dozen or more. I soon learned these so that I could repeat them in the original, which gave me an entering wedge to the heart of every man, woman or child I met.

One day, as I rode through a broom-corn field on the back of a little donkey, my feet almost dragging on the ground, I was repeating some of these rhymes, when the driver running at my side said:

"Ha, you know those children's songs, do you?"

"Yes do you know any?"

"Lots of them," he answered.

"Lots of them" is a favorite expression with the Chinese.

"Tell me some."

"Did you ever hear this one?"

"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, For baby to eat."

I at once dismounted and wrote it down, and promised him five hundred cash apiece for every new one he could give me. In this way, going to and from the city, in conversation with old nurses or servants, personal friends, teachers, parents or children, or foreign children who had been born in China and had learned rhymes from their nurses, I continued to gather them during the entire vacation, and when autumn came I had more than fifty of the most common and consequently the best rhymes known in and about Peking.

A few months after I returned to the city a circular was sent around asking for subscriptions to a volume of Pekinese Folklore, published by Baron Vitali, Interpreter at the Italian legation, which, on examination, proved to be exactly what I wanted. He had collected about two hundred and fifty rhymes, had made a literal—not metrical—translation and had issued them in book form without expurgation.

Others learned of my collection, and rhymes began to come to me from all parts of the empire. Dr. Arthur H. Smith, the well-known author of "Chinese Characteristics" gave me a collection of more than three hundred made in Shantung, among which were rhymes similar to those we had found in Peking. Still later I received other versions of these same rhymes from my little friend, Miss Chalfant, collected in a different part of Shantung from that occupied by Dr. Smith. I then had no fewer than five versions of

"This little pig went to market,"

each having some local coloring not found in the other, proving that the fingers and toes furnish children with the same entertainment in the Orient as in the Occident, and that the rhyme is widely known throughout China.

These nursery rhymes have never been printed in the Chinese language, but like our own Mother Goose before the year 1719, if we may credit the Boston story, they are carried in the minds and hearts of the children. Here arose the first difficulty we experienced in collecting rhymes—the matter of getting them complete. Few are able to repeat the whole of the

"House that Jack built"

although it has been printed many times and they learned it all in their youth. The difficulty is multiplied tenfold in China where the rhymes have never been printed, and where there have grown up various versions from one original which the nurse had, no doubt, partly forgotten, but was compelled to complete for the entertainment of the child.

A second difficulty in making such a collection is that of getting unobjectionable rhymes. While the Chinese classics are among the purest classical books of the world, there is yet a large proportion of the people who sully everything they take into their hands as well as every thought they take into their minds. Thus so many of their rhymes have suffered.

Some have an undertone of reviling. Some speak familiarly of subjects which we are not accustomed to mention, and others are impure in the extreme.

A third difficulty in making a collection of Chinese nursery lore is greater than either the first or the second,—I refer to the difficulty of a metrical rendition of the rhymes. I have no doubt my readers can easily find flaws in my translations of Chinese Mother Goose Rhymes published during the past year. It is much easier for me to find the flaws than the remedies. Many of the words used in the original have no written character or hieroglyphic to represent them, while many others, though having a written form, are, like our own slang expressions, not found in the dictionary.

Now let us turn to a more pleasant feature of this unwritten nursery literature. The language is full of good rhymes, and all objectionable features can be cut out without injury to the rhyme, as it was not a part of the original, but added by some more unscrupulous hand.

Among the nursery rhymes of all countries many refer to insects, birds, animals, persons, actions, trades, food or children. In Chinese rhymes we have the cricket, cicada, spider, snail, firefly, ladybug and butterfly and others. Among fowls we have the bat, crow, magpie, cock, hen, duck and goose. Of animals, the dog, cow, horse, mule, donkey, camel, and mouse, are the favorites. There are also rhymes on the snake and frog, and others without number on places, things and persons,—men, women and children.

Those who hold that the Chinese do not love their children have never consulted their nursery lore. There is no language in the world, I venture to believe, which contains children's songs expressive of more keen and tender affection than some of those sung to children in China.

When we hear a parent say that his child

"Is as sweet as sugar and cinnamon too,"

or that

"Baby is a sweet pill, That fills my soul with joy"

or when we see a father, mother or nurse—for nurses sometimes become almost as fond of their little charge as the parents themselves,—hugging the child to their bosoms as they say that he is so sweet that "he makes you love him till it kills you," we begin to appreciate the affection that prompts the utterance.