Chinese Pastimes.

Pelorus Guardian and Miners' Advocate., Volume 29, Issue 33, 1 May 1917, Page 2

Chinese Pastimes.

Chinese boys and girls are just as fond of toys and games as the children of other lands, although to look at their solemn little faces you would hardly think so. The little Chinese boy has a big pocket in the front of his red pinafore that he loves to fill with all sorts of things—bits of string, a top, coins, and especially candy. His sweetmeats are very hard, some of them like our rock candy, but they taste good to him. He also likes the queer nuts, melonsoeds, and bits of sugar-cane that he buys in the street from a man who goes round with two baskets hanging from a pole that he carries across his shoulders. The toys that the children buy, also from a man in the street, are generally cheap figures of animals or of human beings, made of clay or

paper. The little Chinese girls play at ‘■'hitting the ball,” a game of which all of them are very fond. They bounce the ball on the floor with the palm of their hands and try to see how long they can keep it going. They also have another ball game, like battledore and shuttlecock, only they keep the shuttlecock going with the sole of the foot.

Sometimes a very small boy flies a big kite, and his father and his grandfather like to fly kites as well as he does, which seems strange to us ; but kite-flying is a great amusement for boys and men in China, where they make wonderful kitfe, in the shape of birds, butterflies, and dragons, with outspread wings kites that look very gorgeous as they hang in the air.

Chinese girls do not play much with dolls, but both they and the boys spin tops, which are made of bamboo, and hum loudly. The children get much excitement over Punch and Judy shows. They also dearly love to keep pets, such as goldfish, rabbits, and birds. They have many riddles, nursery rhymes, and games that they play together. Some of the games are very much like those that the children of America and of Europe play, such as blindman’s buff and puss in the corner. Hide-and-seek, too, is the same as in this country, but they have many games that we know nothing about. Sometimes they make themselves into a centipede—which means a creature of a hundred legs—by all joining hands, from the tallest down to the smallest tot. Each one then puts her-head under her arm, and all follow the movements of the tall one at the head of the line, winding in and out in a very funny way.