"
It must be owned that the Chinese are industrious: indeed, if they were
not, they would be starved. A poor man often has to work all day up to
the knees in water in the rice-field, and yet gets nothing for supper but
a little rice and a few potatoes.
The ladies who can live without working are very idle, and in the winter
rise very late in the morning.
Men, too, play, as children do here; flying kites is a favorite game.
Dancing, however, is quite unknown.
The Chinese are very selfish and unfeeling. Beggars may be seen in the
middle of the town dying, and no one caring for them, but people gambling
close by.
The Chinese have an idea that after a man is dead the house must be
cleansed from ghosts; so to save themselves this trouble, poor people
often cast their dying relations out of their hovels into the street to
die!
But in general sons treat their parents with great respect. They often
keep their father's coffin in the house for three months, and a son has
been known to sleep by it for three years. Relations are usually kind to
each other, because they meet together in the "Hall of Ancestors" to
worship the same persons. To save money they often live together, and a
hundred eat at the same table.
The Chinese used to be temperate, preferring tea to wine. There are
tea-taverns in the towns. How much better than our beer-shops! But lately
they have begun to smoke opium. This is the juice of the white poppy,
made up into dark balls.
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