Our pleasures are not such as to shock modesty; they are simple and honest, as becomes an ancient nation, which has left the age of youthful follies long behind it, has due self-respect, and knows how to amuse itself decently.

In my book, “Chinese Tales,” I endeavoured to show the minor details of the life of my compatriots, whose political and social customs I have described in my other book, “The Chinese Painted by Themselves.” The object of this new book is to give a picture of our private amusements and of our small public fÊtes. It belongs, accordingly, to anthropological literature, describing as it does a series of ethnological phenomena, games, ceremonies, and fÊtes, which, however much they may resemble those to be seen in all other countries, have, nevertheless, a special character in each country. This character depends largely on the national conceptions of the people under consideration.

Everybody amuses himself as he thinks best. This affirmation is as true for nations as it is for individuals. Our joys and our ways of manifesting them are they not the expression of our individuality? And when a whole people rejoices in a certain manner, does not that mean that it offers in its fÊtes a kind of picture of its inner life, a synthesis of its dearest aspirations and desires? Our pleasures are determined by our moral and philosophical, political, and social views. Religion has much also to do in fashioning them according to her likeness. The character of a nation is never better shown than in its enjoyments—its fÊtes; in one word, in its pleasures. Tell me how you amuse yourself, and I will tell you what you are.

In the task I have laid upon myself of revealing the Asiatic East to the European West, it seems to me that this new chapter will not be out of place. In any case, the author will be sufficiently rewarded if the reader—albeit only for a moment—finds some pleasure in turning over the leaves of the book he has written.