152
ONCE A WEEK.
[Jan. 30, 1864.
street at night would be very much as if, gas being unlit, everybody with us were seen moving about with transparent paper or silk lanterns, inscribed with Brown, Jones, Robinson, and so on, while the shops right and left were to show their names on larger lanterns perched up on the counters or hung out in front. Men of no respectability, hangers about town, blackguards, sharpers, and such like, get over the disagreeable facility for identification presented by this practice, by carrying lanterns inscribed with the more common surnames, such as (with us) Smith, Brown, and King*[1] would be; or they use mottoes, such as, being translated, would mean, "as you like it," "children and grandchildren innumerable," and so on. Whatever the inscription, some lantern or other is invariably carried; and so wedded are they to the practice, that the brightest of moonlights offers no bar to it; indeed, the writer has seen a mob of thousands round a blazing conflagration, bright enough to reveal each feature of their grinning countenances, and yet all had lanterns to see the fire by. The use of scrolls is another unique and curious custom. No Chinaman possessed of a home, be it a palace or a shanty, a gaudy junk freighted with rich cargo, or a rotten old punt past carrying anything but dung, is satisfied until he has adorned his habitation with mottoes, distiches, antithetical sayings, classical quotations, lucky characters, and such like, written in a bold fanciful hand on red or pink paper; when a death occurs in the family, white paper, if for deep mourning, and blue, if for half mourning, is used instead. Where the house is extensive these scrolls may be seen hung about the rooms handsomely mounted, occupying very much the place of pictures with us; and on every post and panel throughout the building, even down to the doors of the fowl-house and pigsty, may be observed some inscription or other on the never-failing red paper. Where the individual boasts no more than a hut or cottage, he must at least have a pair of scrolls adorning the wall opposite his door, and strips pasted on his door-posts and window-frames. These ornaments have all to be renewed at the beginning of the year, and their preparation affords employment to a vast number of decayed scholars and others who are clever with the camel's hair writing-brush of the country. The Chinese character is written from top to bottom, but yet capable of being arranged at pleasure from right to left, and perhaps is the most beautiful and manageable of modern modes of writing.
- ↑ *It is curious that, in China, "Wang", the equivalent of our English "King", is their commonest surname.
To return to the New Year proceedings. All the bustle and hurry we have attempted to describe increases rapidly as the close of the year draws nigh; and on the last day it reaches its climax, when the scene is as wonderful as it is interesting. With evening of that day all commercial activity ceases, as if by magic, and then begins a wholesale night of pilgrimage to the various temples, for the purpose of worship. Busy crowds still fill the streets but they are all dressed in their best, and each person carries a packet of incense sticks, a supply of silver paper-money, and some candles, with which he goes the round of all or most of the temples to "burn incense," as it is called, or, as it is termed in the jargon so reprehensibly encouraged by English residents in China, to "chin chin joss." The scene in the temples at this time is most curious. They are crowded to suffocation, and the closeness of the air is much increased by the smoke and smell from the fireworks and incense. Dingy huge lanterns cast a flickering gloom across their low-pillared courts; about their altars stand priests officiating incessantly; and in front of these comes in a ceaseless stream of well-dressed men, women, and children, to perform their peculiar worship. This consists of a series of bows and kneelings, thus:—First, the devotee takes a few sticks of incense out of his packet, lights them at one of the altar candles, and sticks them into the mass of ashes which fill the censer. He then clasps his hands together, bows his head forward, and brings them up to his forehead three times. Then he kneels, throws his body forward upon his outstretched hands, knocks his forehead three times upon the floor, and rises, when he repeats the salute with the hands as before. He then lights a string of crackers, and, if so inclined, consults the gods as to his future by throwing on the ground two pieces of wood, constructed for the purpose, or draws one out of a bundle of numbered sticks, and, having done this, he quietly retires to go through the same operation at some other shrine. The whole ceremony is gone through with reverence and in silence; and it is often amusing to watch the gravity and correctness with which little boys, just able to walk, go through the bows and genuflexions, as if they had learnt it from their very cradle. About three o'clock, a.m., the worshipping is at its height, and the din of crackers roars throughout the city, like incessant volleys of musketry. In some towns, such as Canton, where fireworks and crackers are discharged through the livelong night, not only in the temples, but at every doorway, the noise is so great and ceaseless as to make it difficult for any foreign resident to get any
