“In the front are five openings; on the sides are two windows; behind hangs an onion stalk.” “What is it that sits very low and eats more grass than a buffalo?” Here are the answers: Charcoal, a shoe, a shrimp, an egg, a cannon, a looking-glass, a Chinaman’s head, a Chinese kitchen range (which is generally heated with fern and grass). Sometimes riddles are painted on lanterns and hung in front of a shop for people to guess: whoever succeeds in guessing right wins a small prize. Chinese boys and girls have a sweet tooth. Whenever they have cash to do so, they buy sugar-cane, peanut candy and biscuits, some of which are flavoured with sugared kui flowers, which give them a delicious taste. When the man who sells candied peaches and other fruit appears, boys and girls come hopping out of the houses at the sound of his bell, and each one hunts in his little pocket for cash, or begs a few from his mother, to buy some favourite dainty. The children are filled with glee whenever a feast with plays is given at their home. They are not allowed to sit at the feast, nor are they supposed to look on at the plays, but they have a good share of what is going. As the unfinished dishes are carried from the tables, one after the other, the servants and children have a feast of their own outside. Long before the plays begin, the children watch the erection of the stage in the court or in the street outside the house, and examine the masks and dresses as they are taken out of their boxes and hung up ready for use. When the music strikes up they choose knowing corners, from which to peep past the shoulders and over the heads of the big people. They love to see the actors dressed like famous heroes who lived long ago, although they cannot recognise the boys now beneath their red and black masks, long beards and rich robes. How the music clamours and the drums beat and the rattles clatter. Warriors shout and stamp, fine ladies wave their fans. When fighting begins upon the stage it would be difficult indeed to catch the boys among the crowd, to send them to bed! CHAPTER VII STORIES AND RIMES One of the best ways to know boys and girls is to learn something of the stories they like to hear and tell. Here are one or two which will help you to understand our friends the Chinese children much better than pages of talk about their looks and ways.