Category: Biographies
On a certain day in the year 1861, I was born. I cannot give you the exact date, because the Chinese year is different from the English year, and our months being lunar, that is, reckoned by the revolution of the moon around the earth, are consequently shorter than yours. We r...
On a certain day in the year 1861, I was born. I cannot give you the exact date, because the Chinese year is different from the English year, and our months being lunar, that is...
2. CHAPTER II.Babyhood is the most enjoyable stage in the life of an Oriental. It is the only period when his wishes are regarded and when demonstrations of affection are shown him. The famil...
3. CHAPTER III.The housekeeping was likewise simple. My grandmother was the head of the family during her husband’s absence, and she had always the management of the minor affairs of the entir...
4. CHAPTER IV.There are hardly any sports, so-called, that develop the muscles and render a lad graceful and agile. The Chinese boy at sixteen is as grave and staid as an American grandfather...
5. CHAPTER V.I still continually find false ideas in America concerning Chinese customs, manners, and institutions. Small blame to the people at large, who have no means of learning the trut...
6. CHAPTER VI.Schools in China are usually kept by private gentlemen. The government provides for advanced scholars only. But since the one qualification for office is education, and the aven...
7. CHAPTER VII.In talking about religion in China, I need hardly remind you that Christianity is of recent introduction and that many things belonging to it, such as the Sabbath, churches, min...
8. CHAPTER VIII.It would be a matter of many chapters were I to describe all the holidays which we have in China. The bare enumeration of them would be as difficult as tedious. In point of fact...
9. CHAPTER IX.The Chinese are passionately fond of stories and story-telling. On the public streets and squares, professional story-tellers congregate from noon to midnight, going over the ac...
10. CHAPTER X.About forty years ago, there came to this country under the auspices of the Rev. Dr. Brown, an American missionary in China, a Chinese youth—who was destined to exert a potent i...
11. CHAPTER XI.On our arrival at Shanghai, my cousin took me to see our aunt whose husband was a compradôr in an American tea warehouse. A compradôr is usually found in every foreign _hong_ or...
12. CHAPTER XII.After a stormy voyage of one week, with the usual accompaniment of seasickness, we landed at Yokohama, in the Country of the Rising Sun. For Japan means “sun-origin.” The Japane...