The superstitions of China are countless, and of course differ in different parts of the Empire, but you will like to hear of some that touch the lives of the boys and girls.

When boys and girls are born, their fortunes are told. The baby’s father gets the child’s ‘eight characters’ written down on a piece of paper. Two of the ‘characters’ tell the year, two the month, two the day and two the hour when the little one came into this world; these he takes to the man who ‘looks at people’s lives,’ who he believes can tell from them whether the child will be fortunate or unhappy in this world. This fortune-teller, who is very often blind, has a great deal to do with baby’s fate. If, for instance, he says that fire enters into its disposition, and someone else in the family has a fortune connected with wood, then the child will surely bring bad fortune to that person, for fire burns wood. The people believe what the blind man says, and so poor little baby is given away, or even in some cases put to death, to prevent its bringing trouble upon the family. When baby grows older it is supposed to be in danger from wicked spirits. Little gilt idols are put in its cap, to frighten away these demons, a favourite figure being that of a roly-poly bald idol, called ‘Fat Strength.’ When a little older, a tiny round tray, foot-measure and pair of scissors are sewn on the front band of its cap, for the same purpose. Coins, charms of copper and silver, and little square bags of incense powder, with the names of idols written on them, are also hung round children’s necks to keep away the evil spirits.

If a little one takes ill the father sometimes begs one cash from a hundred different people among his neighbours and friends. With these coins he has a chain made to go round the child’s neck and a padlock to fasten it tightly. In this way he hopes, poor man, to fasten baby’s soul firmly to its body, and so prevent it from dying. If, in spite of this, baby gets worse, its father thinks some idol is enticing its soul away from its little body. After finding out which idol is probably the thief, he takes one of the child’s little garments and puts it into an empty basket, which has a length of dry straw rope tied round it. Then he goes to the temple, and, after offering things which he thinks will please the idol, and make it willing to let baby’s spirit go again, he spreads out the little jacket, believing that the tiny soul will recognise its own garment and get into it. Then he puts the garment carefully into his basket and lights the straw rope that it may burn slowly, and lead the little wandering spirit safely home.[5]

In some places the father goes about with the tiny jacket hung on the end of a stick, calling baby’s name aloud, hoping to find the little wandering spirit in this way.

Boys and girls early come to know the stone lions, which stand opposite points where straight lanes or streets enter other streets, or in front of temples and yamens. These curious images have broad noses and tufted manes and tails. Some crouch close against a block in a wall, with round eyes and long teeth, looking as if they were going to walk out of the stone. Many have their heads on one side, with a double string hanging down from their mouths. Some have a baby lion in front of them or a carved ball under one paw. A few have a ball inside their stone jaws and some are crouching as if to spring. The children are told that these stone lions stand in front of houses to prevent evil spirits or ghosts from coming along the lane to hurt people inside. They say that in the middle of the night the lions come down from their stone pedestals and play about the streets with their balls, rolling over and over one another! One lion, which was supposed to change himself into a man and roam about the streets, has been caged with bars and is kept safely shut up in a little temple of his own in Chinchew.

Then children are also told that coffins, which have been shone upon by the moon, turn into ghosts and walk about the streets, trying to catch people. They think there are demons who call and howl whenever anyone is going to die. They say, too, that the spirits of drowned people turn into duck demons, which swim near the edge of ponds. If anyone is foolish enough to try to catch them, they drag him under the water and drown him. The drowned man then becomes the duck demon, and the first man can escape. Then children are told of serpent demons and foxes that turn into people, and bring hurt to those who take them into their houses. A famous story is that of a man who met a beautiful lady and married her. One day he came home rather sooner than his wife expected him, and could not find her anywhere. At last he peeped through a hole in an old shed, and there he saw a hideous demon, painting its skin, which was stretched on a board. Looking at the skin the man saw that it was his wife’s, and so knew he had married a fox-demon and not a woman. “If you could stretch your hand three feet above your head you would touch the spirits,” is a common saying.

Fork-like prongs stick out from the roofs of the houses to drive away demons. Streets and roads often, for no reason, turn a sharp corner, and the furrows ploughed in the fields are awry, so that the spirits may lose their way and not come along them to hurt people. They think there are spirits of the door and spirits under the eaves, spirits of the rafters and spirits of the bed.

Sometimes you will see a head with a shining sword in its mouth above a door; sometimes a sword, made of round brass cash, tied together by a red cord, hangs in a bedroom. If a wicked spirit comes to hurt anyone inside the room the spirit of the sword is supposed to flash out and drive it away.

In the hills and waters, in graves and in houses, in great stones and in old trees, in the moon and in the stars, there are, the Chinese say, spirits and spiritual influences. There is the earth spirit in the ground and there are dragons which may be made very angry if the soil is dug too deeply. If an earth dragon is angry and moves his tail, half a city may fall down. There are dragons too of air and water. When an eclipse took place, the people used always to go out with drums and pans and brass gongs to frighten away the Celestial Dog, which they thought was eating up the sun or moon. In 1909, however, when the Prince Regent was asked to give orders for the usual ceremonies to drive away an eclipse, he refused, saying that now these foolish ways must cease.

Numbers of superstitious practices are connected with the idols. The spirits inside them are supposed to eat the spirit of the food offered upon the altar. Inside some of the images there is a mirror, in which the idol is supposed to see all that passes before it. On certain days idols are carried through cities and villages and round the fields to let them see how their worshippers are faring. On great festivals men may be seen bare to the waist, with their hair floating down their backs, and thin, flat swords in their hands. The spirit of the idol is thought to enter these men. They foam at the mouth, they whirl round and rush about, they cut themselves, striking wildly over their shoulders with their swords. Though they do not wound themselves badly, yet thin streaks of red show where the skin is cut. Guns are fired and piles of paper money send up clouds of smoke. The ‘mediums,’ as these men may be called, put their swords between their teeth and leap on to the carrying poles of the idols’ sedan-chair, and thus standing behind the image, they are carried through the streets.

Chinese boys and girls are also taught to believe that the spirits of the idols go into women, who turn very white and ill-looking, and then begin to speak in a strange, thin, muttering voice. The people think that when the idol spirit is in these women, they can bring dead people back to speak to their friends and children, just as the witch of Endor brought back Samuel to speak to Saul.

In southern China, a man named It-sai-peh, who was a Christian, died before his wife had learned to believe in God. His widow was very sad when he died, and wished to burn money, clothes, houses, servants, horses and other things, all made of paper, so that the spirit of all these things should be of use to her husband in the unseen world. Before going to the expense, however, she went to ask one of these women, who was said to be a spirit medium, whether she ought to make the offerings or not.

“Shall I make offerings for It-sai-peh’s soul?” asked the widow.

“It-sai-peh is in heaven,” said the woman, “he does not need your offerings.”

It was a strange answer for the witch to make, but it did good, for It-sai-peh’s widow was much comforted; she did not waste her money on useless offerings, but she went to church to hear the doctrine which had saved her husband, and in time herself believed in Christ.

In addition to consulting these idol mediums, people often go to the temples to cast lots themselves, and to divine. They first offer incense and paper money, then they tell the idol what they want to do, and ask it whether they may do so or not. After this they take two curved bamboo roots, round on one side and flat on the other. They wave these before the image, and then throw them down upon the floor. If the two round sides or the two flat sides turn upwards, that means No, but if one round side and one flat side are uppermost, that means Yes. They throw three times; and twice yes, or twice no, settles the matter. Sometimes they go to certain temples or shrines to sleep, in the hopes that the idols will tell them in a dream the winning number in a lottery, or something else they want very much to know. When they have had the dream they go to someone wise in explaining dreams, to find out its meaning.

The idols are supposed to do strange things at times. Once when the officials were putting out a great fire at Pekin, they said they saw a boy with a red face, in the midst of the flames, helping their men; everywhere the boy went the fire died down, till soon it ceased altogether. Search was made for the useful boy, but he could not be found. Afterwards it was said that in a distant province there was a boy idol, deified when he was eleven years old, represented with a red face, and sitting on a throne. This idol was now honoured with a title and special offerings, because it was believed that he had gone all the way to Pekin to help to put out the fire.

The people think that sometimes idols get down from their seats and go about in the way just described. Here is a story which will make this superstition plain.

In the West Street of a certain Chinese city a man kept a cake shop. The shopkeeper began to notice that very early every morning two chubby children used to bring some cash to buy cakes. What further surprised him was that every night he found some sheets of yellow paper money (such as is offered to idols) at the bottom of the till. Nobody put the paper money into the box, but every night, as surely as he counted over his gains, there was the yellow paper lying at the bottom. Sometimes he wondered whether this paper money had to do with the boys who came to buy cakes in the morning. But let him watch ever so closely, he never saw them put anything into his till. They brought him good luck, however, for more people came to buy his cakes every day, and he made plenty of pennies. But the cake man could not give up wondering about the paper money, and, at last, he made up his mind that the children certainly had to do with the mystery. Nobody knew where the pair of chubby-cheeked boys came from, or where they went to, and they were not quite like ordinary boys, there was something distinguished in their look and ways.

One day the shopkeeper could restrain his curiosity no longer, so he waited until the boys left the shop, and then he followed them along the pavement, carefully keeping at a distance and noticing where they went. After walking along the West Street for a little distance, they turned up a narrow lane; their pursuer quickened his pace and followed them along the lane, and out into another street, and yet another, until they disappeared round the corner of a small temple. A minute later the inquisitive man followed them. Inside the temple were two images of chubby-faced child idols. The secret was out! The boys were no ordinary children, but idol spirits which had taken to frisking about the city. The secret was out, but the boys came no more to the cake shop. There was no more paper money lying at the bottom of the till at night, and, for some reason, fewer people went to buy cakes, so that the prying shopkeeper’s business fell off from that day. That, at least, is the legend.

It would not be easy to tell one hundredth part of the superstitions of a country which has followed heathen ways for so long as China has done. It may be said that no one can be born, reared, taught, married; no one can study, farm land, keep a shop, work or govern; no one can be doctored or nursed, die or be buried, without numberless superstitious customs, which entangle the lives of the Chinese people as the meshes of a spider’s web entangle a fly.

Who is that blind man who strikes a cow’s horn with a bit of wood as he walks along? Kok, kok, kok, goes the horn. It is the fortune-teller, upon whose words the fate of so many people depends. There—a woman has stopped him. The sound of the horn is stilled. He leans his head to one side, listening, while his poor, empty eyes stare vacantly. Now he is speaking. You cannot hear his words, for he has lowered his voice. Probably he is telling the old lady her fortune, or advising her about a new daughter-in-law, or some business matter. On we go. There, at a corner of that temple under the shadow of the red brick wall, sits a learned-looking man with wide-rimmed spectacles. He has a table in front of him, on which there are two small cages. Wait a moment and you will see something of interest. Up come some people from the country. You can tell that they are villagers by their new clothes and the circles of silver pins which the girls have stuck in their hair, beside their general look of being on holiday. One of them wishes to have her fortune told. See! the old gentleman has put some slips of folded paper, about the size of playing-cards, upon the table. There are different fortunes written on them. If you looked closely enough at the edge of the folded papers you would see that one of them has a little double fold. But this is a secret of which these country folk know nothing. Now which of the fortunes will be chosen? Wait and you will see. Old Spectacles opens the door of one of the cages and out hops the most friendly speckled brown bird. He stands in front of the folded papers and looks at them, one after the other, in the wisest way; he turns his head, down dives his clean, black bill. See, he has picked up one of the papers. His master takes the paper and gives birdie a grain of rice before putting him back in his cage. Now he reads off the fortune from the paper and explains its meaning. The country folk are much impressed, especially by the wise bird, and pay their money willingly before they go away. They are so superstitious that they really believe the bird chose their fortune for them, but birdie only picked out the paper with a fold in the edge, because he hoped to find a grain of corn in the crease. If you followed its master home, you would see him constantly teaching his little brown pet to choose the paper with a fold, by putting a grain of rice just inside the crease. So when customers come to have their fortunes told, the bird looks over the papers until it finds the one folded at the edge by the fortune-teller, and then picks it up and gives it to be read by him.

This account of a few of their superstitions will serve to show you in what constant trouble and dread the Chinese children live, for fear of the demons and spirits all round them, because they do not know and trust in God. When living among them one cannot but feel that they are like the people long ago, “who, through fear of death, were all their lifetime subject to bondage.” Yet we may learn something from them too. The constant sense of the unseen world among the Chinese and their dread of offending the invisible spirits, should make us ask ourselves if we remember the unseen God as often, and are as careful not to offend against our loving, watchful Heavenly Father, as they are not to offend the spirits.