10. The Chinese New Year.
IN no country in the world is so much made of the New Year as in China. It is kept as a universal holiday, and is the only one of the year, business going on from the beginning of the year to the end of it.
The New Year is the greatest of all China’s national feast days. There are other great feasts, such as the feast of dragon-boats, the feast of lanterns, the feast of plowing, and the feast of spring, at each of which there is a large amount of excitement, both publicly, and in the homes of the people. At these feasts, idols are paraded about the streets, followed by hundreds of priests, representatives of numerous commercial and religious guilds, and by men and boys from the streets, who, for a meal, or the price of one, are ready enough to cover their rags and filthy limbs with the gay clothing provided for the occasion. There are also special feasts connected with birthdays, marriages, and funerals.
There are few things more remarkable in the round of Chinese social life than the universality of their customs. Every Chinaman shaves his head, and nearly every woman binds her feet. Every village turns out with gongs and tin kettles, whenever there is an eclipse of the sun or moon. Every family keeps the New Year, and very much in the same way, so that, when this festival has been seen in one part of the country, how it is observed everywhere else may be known pretty well. Some customs, however, are peculiar to certain districts. For instance, in Amoy, in the south of China, there is the custom of “surrounding the furnace,” which is generally practiced thus: ―
On the New Year’s eve, the family sits down to a substantial meal, with a pan of burning charcoal under the dinner table. This is supposed to preserve the house and family from fires during the coming year. After supper the wooden lamp-stands are brought out, and placed on the pavement in heaps of gold and silver paper, and then a volley of fire-crackers are set on fire to warn off any demons who may be near. The embers are afterward divided into twelve heaps, and their dying out is carefully watched, as in them is to be found a prognostic of the kind of weather to be expected in the ensuing year.
My first experience of the Chinese New Year was in a city in the North, where, so far as was known, the gospel had never been preached. It was my first missionary journey in China, and I was entirely alone, with the exception of a heathen servant, who, I discovered, after engaging him for the journey, was an opium smoker. In every respect I was made to feel the awful reality of being probably a lone witness for Christ, in the midst of a province of something like fifteen millions of souls! The depth of sin and ignorance of the city, in which I found myself, was of itself sufficient to impress me with the crying need these people have of Christ, who alone can raise human creatures from the lowest depths of degradation and misery, to God.
Three weeks before the New Year, preparations for the festival began. However dull business might have been previously, all were now actively engaged. Stalls were erected in the streets and temples, and goods of every description were exhibited. The women were busily engaged making new clothes for their children, their husbands, and themselves, unless indeed they were wealthy enough to pay a tailor’s heavy bill. It was the time for giving presents to friends, for which purpose shoes and caps were in great demand. The streets on the feast day were crowded with country people, and all were determined to give up themselves thoroughly to the enjoyment of the general holiday.
The people are less prepared to listen to our preaching during this festival than at ordinary times, but some in the city in which I was, did listen, and became so far interested as to buy a New Testament to give to their friends as a New Year’s gift. Sometime after I had left the city, a man walked three days’ journey in search of me to obtain a dozen more Testaments to circulate among his friends, so interested was he in the teaching of God’s word.
The Chinese are great borrowers of money, and often pay large interest upon it. It would be difficult to find a Chinaman who is not in debt. There is, however, one good thing about Chinese debtors, in that they settle their accounts at the New Year. Where this is not done, articles of furniture and other property are seized. Now the last thing a debtor wishes to lose, at such a time of general festivity, is the door of his house, for, the door being gone, reasons he, evil spirits and every bad influence may come in, and annoy in ways that would never suggest themselves to men of our western countries.
The people not only settle their accounts with their neighbors at the New Year, but they also have a general settling with their gods. The gods in the temples, and those of the household, all share alike in this respect, and small dishes of delicate food are set before them, which they are invited to eat and drink, and to be generally merry. Large quantities of incense are also burnt before them, and men, women, and children come to them and prostrate themselves before them asking their deliverance from evil.
The kitchen god, I have been told, is often treated with great consideration a few days before the New Year, at which time he is supposed to go away, and render to his superiors the annual account of what has been going on in the kitchen over which he presides. This deity is very particular, and if there have been extravagance, if rice have been wasted, or allowed to fall upon the floor, and to be trodden under foot, he makes a note of it, for nothing escapes his eye. Because of this, and to make the best of a misfortune, the Chinaman does his utmost about New Year’s Day to put himself on specially good terms with this kitchen god. He feeds him well on sweet food, and sometimes smears treacle over the mouth of the idol, with the wish that when he stands before his superiors, his lips may stick together, and prevent his telling unpleasant tales!
Christian people scarcely credit such absurdities, but they confirm the truth, that, “They that make them are like unto them; so is every one that trusteth in them.” (Psa. 115:88They that make them are like unto them; so is every one that trusteth in them. (Psalm 115:8).)
The houses, temples, and shops are largely decorated with colored lamps and paper scrolls at this festive season. Long slips of red paper, containing half a dozen or more large characters, are pasted upon the door posts, and paper gods are pasted upon the doors, to guard the house against evil spirits, and to invite happiness and joy to come in and abide there. On these slips are written such sentences as this: “May heaven send down happiness,” or, by the side of a shop door, “May rich customers ever enter this door.” A literary man will write upon his red scroll, “May I be so learned as to secrete in my mind three myriads of volumes! May I know the affairs of the world for six thousand years!”
All classes of the people observe the New Year, and for three days every shop is closed, and hence a supply of food for these three days has to be secured before the holiday. Business generally is not resumed for ten days or a fortnight afterward.
The Chinese consider the New Year a sort of birthday of the nation, and a child born, say, a week before the New Year, is said to be in its second year a week after the New Year.
This feast is the occasion for general visiting. On the first day the magistrates, and all officials, receive the prostrations of their inferiors in rank; parents, the prostrations of their children, dressed in their new clothes; and teachers, the salutations of their pupils. On the second day, these calls are returned friends everywhere congratulate each other and Kung hsi, “I respectfully wish you joy,” is on every lip.
A great amount of formality is gone through; for example, two friends meet it a quiet street, and, contrary to custom at other times of the year, salute each other, and make an endeavor to prostrate themselves before each other, in which politeness the) are always prevented, either by persuasion of main force, lest by so doing they should soil their new silk garments.
A great deal of the visiting is done by leaving cards at houses, which are strips of red paper, not quite so wide as a sheet of our note paper, having the person’s name in large characters down the center. The following words are written when the visit is to a personal friend, “Three happy wishes: ― Children, Rank and Longevity.” A card, containing the name only, is sufficient for distant acquaintances, and customers; the visitor is carried round in his sedan chair, and leaves his card at a house, and thus the whole day is occupied.
After this, feasting and gambling begin. Dice, cards, dominoes are used, and the children and their mothers join in the games. Money is played for, and the voices of the gamblers may be heard crying out to the gods for good luck as the dice are thrown. Quarrels arise, and at times murder ends the games.
This is a lucrative season for the priests. Offerings in money are made to the gods, which reach the coffers of the priest in charge; the priests also make money by selling large quantities of incense to visitors, and by supplying them with tea and confectionery in the gardens and visiting halls of the temples.
During the feast, I went to several of the principal temples in the city, and preached to groups of people about the courts and in the streets. As I stood in a prominent position in the temple, and watched the people coming up in family groups, and prostrating themselves one after another, in the most humiliating manner, before blocks of wood and mud, my feelings of pity and shame cannot be described.
In one large temple, I passed through a succession of rooms, each of which was full of the most hideous images that the depraved mind of man could imagine. This was a representation of the Buddhist’s hell, and a more awfully cruel place could not have been depicted, unless indeed its equal is to be found in some of the pictures in Roman Catholic mortuaries on the Continent. There was one large idol, some eight feet high, seated on a throne in the center of each room, representing the governor, or prince of some special department of torture, and he was surrounded by a number of hideous attendants, painted either red or black. In front of the presiding demon, kneeled a poor wretch, about to receive his punishment for his misdeeds in the old world, and for his having accumulated so little merit by good works, yet who, for some cause, was deemed worthy of escaping the worst of the tortures. Others were represented, tied to posts, and being sawn asunder by demons, who appeared highly delighted with their work. Another scene was that of a man thrust head first into a common mill for grinding corn, and being slowly ground to powder; red paint smeared over the millstones represented his blood. Again, were to be seen devils pushing unwilling miscreants into jars of boiling oil, and many other horrors relating to the infernal regions, too awful, and too revolting to narrate.
The children of heathen parents are taught to stand in mortal fear of these frightful images, and in company with their parents and friends are led to worship them. Is it a wonder that we find them slow to understand the nature of God’s message of love and pardon? Love and pardon are unknown in the whole region of idolatry.
If the effect which these remarks have upon my readers, increases their sympathy, and stimulates prayer for these poor pleasure-seeking idolators of China, I shall feel that something has been done to extend the kingdom of Christ in heathendom. A.G.P.