CHINESE PUZZLEDOM 155 



wise indeed to know who is and who is not his maternal 

 parent. Early marriages, and plurality of wives are res- 

 ponsible for this singular state of affairs, to pursue which is 

 most distracting. Under these conditions one must not be 

 too severe on a houseboy even should he have a dozen 

 parents to inter in eighteen months. And if you chance to 

 rind a multitude of strangers in your kitchen, and the cook 

 tells you they are all his brothers, the probabilities are he 

 can prove the veracity of his statement. 



Dr. Arthur Smith once propounded a Chinese con- 

 undrum. He asked, "Why do Chinese wheelbarrows always 

 squeak?" His answer was, "Because the squeak is cheaper 

 than oil?" This is a delightful bit of humour; but the true 

 explanation is because the squeak serves the wheelbarrow 

 as a horn serves the motor-car to clear the way. Maddening 

 as the squeak undoubtedly is, we must admit, when we 

 come to scrutinize it closely, that there certainly is method 

 in the madness. But there are scores of other things not so 

 easily explained. An ungrateful person is said to possess 

 the heart of a wolf and the lungs of a dog. That the heart 

 of a wolf should be void of such gentle instincts as gratitude 

 may be readily conceded ; but what the lungs of a dog has to 

 do with the case is as clear as mud. The golden crow sinks 

 in the west; the jade rabbit rises in the east. This is faintly 

 seen, like a vision in a dream, when we are told that the 

 "golden crow" denotes the sun, and the "jade rabbit" the 

 moon; but it is hopeless to attempt to discover the con- 

 nection between the crow and the sun, and the moon and 

 the rabbit, and a jade rabbit at that. 



As for left-handedness and topsyturveydom, we see it 

 in everything. According to ancient usage the place of 

 honour is on the left-hand side, not the right-hand side as 

 with us, a Chinese would never dream of saying "right and 

 left"; with him it is always "& fa , "left and right." In all 

 things, it is gentlemen first and ladies after; the Chinese 

 man has never made any concession to womankind in his 

 ancestral rights as regards precedence. The Chinese do not 

 shake hands with each other; they clasp their own hands 

 and shake them at each other. A man does not choose his 

 own wife, nor does he ever propose marriage; he leaves 

 others to do that for him. A waistcoat is worn outside of 

 the coat. In the west garters are worn for a specific 

 purpose; in China they are worn at the ankles, for the 

 specific purpose of keeping the trousers down. It is con- 

 sidered grossly impolite for a man to remove his hat in the 



