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Excerpt from Chapter Eleven

The thatched roofs of the farmers' houses stood out in view, as I rode my bicycle along country paths. The mud-plastered dwellings were surrounded by sparse yards, often seen with chickens and children roaming about. I noticed that very young children did not wear diapers, instead toddlers wore pants that were split at the seat. When the youngsters needed to squat, their posteriors would be conveniently exposed and their pants would stay unsoiled.

Whenever I passed a Chinese family, they always smiled and in greeting asked how I was, or how things were going in Chinese. Their friendly salutation, "Hao, boo hao?" literally means, "Good? not good?" The Chinese for miles around, young and old alike, knew of the airfield and seemed to like the Americans there. When the war came, they often put themselves at risk to help and rescue American personnel.

After awhile, I discovered that I could communicate with the Chinese that I met using the few words I knew of their language. They seemed to be attuned to my thoughts, and with several Chinese words accompanied by hand signals, I usually relayed my ideas to them. Despite living under hardships and sometimes in the most unsanitary squalor, the Chinese appeared contented and happy.

All drinking water in China needed to be boiled. If tea colored the water, then it was assumed that the water had been boiled and the brew was safe to drink. It has been said that this is what made the tea ceremony so important in Asian culture.

As I pedaled along I saw Chinese who were busy outside at their cooking pots preparing water and foods. The Chinese are very clever for all of their purposes in getting the best use out of whatever is available. This is especially true for their food preparation, and as I passed by their cooking pots smelled divine.

The majority of Chinese at that time had many superstitions, most of which seemed very strange to me. As a person approaches the point of death, it is believed that the spirits come and take the soul away. When Colonel Reinberg's died, my Chinese house boy told me in pigeon English, "Die man must have ghostie, no die man, no ghostie." Often one could see running down the street a crying mother hugging her child close to her, calling to the spirits and pleading that the soul returned.

It was a common belief in China that a stranger must not help anyone facing death. The stranger would then be responsible for not only the soul, but also the debts, of the dying person. If the stranger should assist in bringing the person back to life, and the spirits thought that the dying person should have expired, then the stranger would have interfered with the divine plan. In this case, the stranger could be taken away by the spirit instead of the one who was dying.

A story was told in this connection about a cadet from the Central Aviation School. The young pilot had a forced landing in the river, and was attempting to climb into a nearby fishing boat. The frightened fisherman believing that he had seen a fatal mishap, began striking the downed pilot violently with his stick trying to beat him to death. Yet there were many more Chinese who doubtless had the same beliefs as this fisherman, but who tempted the fates by helping our cadets and personnel at whatever personal cost.

Many Chinese believe that spirits can travel only in straight lines while visiting the earth. So the rows in the rice fields are made crooked or "piz-paz" in order to make the spirits give up in disgust and go away. At the doors of many houses, partitions were placed adjacent to the thresholds to prevent the spirits from entering. It was thought that the spirits could not make the sharp turns necessary for entrance into the house.

All kinds of contrivances are put on Chinese buildings to keep the evil spirits away. Some of these such as menacing dragons and staring ugly faces present to the foreigner much more horror than I believe the spirit itself would, were it really possible to see it.

Certain parts of the body were often supposed to be the origins of life. Statues of these parts were used in many places as tombstones. Many Chinese thought it good luck to touch the two bronze lions outside the Hong Kong and Shanghai Bank on the Bund in Shanghai, then one of the world's largest bank buildings. On the day before the state lottery was drawn, many Chinese came by to pat these lions in hopes that it would make them a winner.

Besides being thought generally lucky for anyone who touched them, this pair of lions guarding the doors of the Central Bank long had been purported to restore powers of childbirth to women denied this blessing. These statues had been rubbed so often through the years that the sexual parts of the male lion had become conspicuously bright.

Some Chinese took chances that risked getting themselves killed in order to be freed of ghosts. When they saw a fast-moving vehicle, they waited until it was very close, and then suddenly darted out in front of it. They believed that the spirits following immediately behind them could be hit by the speeding vehicle. Taxi drivers seemed to think that it was their duty to drive as near to a person as possible without hitting them, so as to knock the devil away. This was especially true of the rickshaw pullers, often making foreigners feel quite unsafe.

Ancestor worship was common in China, where tales of the ancestors would be passed from one generation to the next. The family of the deceased loved one must always remember them, and by so doing the ancestor would be perpetuated eternally. In this manner the Chinese elders could live forever.

Many Chinese believed in the reincarnation of their ancestors, who sometimes would return to life in the form of lowly persons such as beggars. As a result, begging had become tolerated all over China. Some supposed they must give to the beggars, in order not to be haunted by them for the rest of their lives.

Out East there are any number of things to be found that were completely opposite from those of the Western world. Traffic drove on the lefthand side of the roadways in China, instead of on the right as in the United States. Chinese books were read backward in comparison to Western practices. Chinese letters, or characters, were written in rows from the top of the page to the bottom. These rows began on the right side of the page and continued across ending on the left side. Horse races in China were run from right to left. The Chinese men wore robes and the women wore pants, and the bride always went to the groom's house for the marriage ceremony. Firecrackers were a part of their funeral services, and often mourners in elaborate costumes were seen in the processional with white sacks over their heads.

All these Chinese customs were as strange to us, as I feel certain our customs seemed to them. Their beliefs and behaviors were sometimes curious, but always interesting. I was determined to preserve them in my diary and scrapbook, and to carry them with me from China in my mind's eye.

Copyright ©2000 by Sebie Biggs Smith. All rights reserved.
No part of this excerpt may be reproduced or reprinted without permission in writing from NewSouth Books.

Read Another Excerpt - from Chapter Thirteen