Some Are Angels and Some Are Brats, and It’s Quite Easy to Have Too Many, But The Chinese Believe They Put More Meaning in Life
Children are a delight in any country. Sometimes they are your own, sometimes they are other people’s. There are exceptions to goodness, of course - brats exist everywhere. All kids are noisy at times, and adult ears are not always adjusted to the din.
Chinese children are noisy, too, and naughty. But sometimes Westerners don’t believe it. Around the Chinese child, as viewed through the Occidental eye, has grown up the myth of “seen but not heard”, of enchantingly correct behavior. How the Chinese wish that it were true!
Oh, Chinese children are not so bad—those bright, black, button eyes, sparkling with intelligence and questioning everybody’s way of life. They are cute, they are gentle—sometimes—and they are well-adjusted, almost always. At least it says so in the book. According to the pediatricians and the child psychologists—usually Western or Western-oriented—the Chinese child is the product of the rock-solid Chinese family. He is therefore secure and shows it with mature behavior.
They (the psychologists) say that the Chinese child was wanted before it was born, was tenderly cared for afterward (even to the point of residence on the mother’s back—until a littler one comes along), and has been reared with gentleness, unfailing patience, and supreme attention to the ego. No wonder, they say, that the child grows into a well-balanced, cheerful adult whose fears and neurotic disturbances are non-existent.
All myths must have an ending. The stresses and strains of modern living have their effect on children and adults everywhere. All over the world - China included—there are more neuroses and psychoses than there used to be. Maybe in mainland China, where Communism reigns temporarily, the total is the highest of all. According to all reports, security no longer exists for children or adults under the Communists.
But in this article we are not concerned with how things are across the Taiwan Straits, or even how they are in the hearts of the mainland Chinese who came to this island to continue the fight against Communism. Rather, we shall concentrate on the island-born, the Taiwanese, on how they regard their young - and what they do about them. Most of the proverbs, mottos, wisecracks, and allusions set forth here are in common use today among Taiwanese. The original forms of Amoy dialect are not presented, either in Chinese characters or phonetic transcription, because spoken Amoy lacks the appropriate characters and also because the seven tones and nasal sounds defy paper representation—sort of like the children.
Adopted Sons
Every branch of a Chinese family must have sons to perpetuate the line, to honor parents in life, and to worship their spirits after death. If there are no sons, a family will adopt one from the household of a relative or friend. An adopted son is entitled to all the legal rights of lineal heir, even if a son is subsequently born to the family.
This “male first” concept has changed somewhat. Most sonless, childless couples now reconcile themselves to the idea that “you have children only when you are so destined”. But so strong has been this desire for sons that only a couple of decades ago a sonless wife felt obliged to urge her husband to take a concubine so that through her, sons might be born to the household. A concubine’s sons, in such cases, were legally the sons of the wife. “Concubines bear sons for wives,” the people say.
A son-in-law can be legally adopted if he agrees to live with his bride in the home of her parents. He becomes heir to her family’s estate to compensate for his transfer of family allegiance. He may even demand an immediate share of her family’s property. In any event, he assumes .the father-in-law’s surname, starts calling his natural father “uncle”, and will be expected to perform the proper rites and sacrifices to his new family’s ancestors as if they were his own. But not many men can be talked into renouncing their family allegiance in this way, as reflected in the saying: “Even a thousand pieces of gold can’t fetch you a real son.”
Some families still go to extreme lengths to assure a male succession. One such practice is called “marrying the dead”. After the death of an unmarried son, the deceased may be “married” to a living or dead girl and an adopted boy will be regarded as their issue. The boy will thus continue the family line and will worship at the ancestral tablets. If the “bride” is a living girl, she may not have to remain a “widow”. She can be “remarried” to a living husband.
Incidentally, a deceased girl may be “married” by placing her tablet in a bridal chair along with a dowry commensurate with the family’s financial and social standing. The “bridegroom” may already have a wife or may later take a living bride, but one of the children will be assigned to take care of the deceased girl’s tablet.
Family Size
After all the fuss about having children, what happens when you start having them? Children certainly are the best home furnishings, but they have become so expensive that only the poor can afford them. Asked to practice birth control, a Taiwanese may answer: “If you’re going to have three kids, you’ll have three sooner or later.” The idea is: it’s no use trying to alter nature’s timetable. People who say so are likely to have a dozen before they began to wonder if that, too, was ordained.
What do the Taiwan-born Chinese say about ideal family size? Here are some of their ideas:
—“One boy, one girl, one fresh flower; five boys and two girls make you toil.” You stay young longer, like a fresh flower in the field, if you have only a son and a daughter. In fact, however, the average family of Taiwan has between four and five children. The most prolific couple on the island has 17.
—“Too many sons starve pa.” One filial son is better than a dozen who are so engrossed with their own affairs that they ignore their parents’ well-being.
—“Debtor-creditor relations in the previous life make you father and son in this life.” Sons in Taiwan are generally termed “debt-collecting sons” or “debt-paying sons”. Girls are not classified in this way, for they are invariably debt-collectors and there is no need to mention it.
—“A father owes his son a debt; a husband owes his wife a debt.” This shows that the Chinese father, like his counterparts in other countries, must suffer the headaches as the head of the family.
Pampered Boys
The poor may declare with a sigh that “sons are not worth bags of gold”, but consolation always comes in the forms of “more sons, greater luck”, “you won’t be poor always as long as you have sons”, and “bad sons often become the best sons”. All these sayings are conditional. Hope persists as long as the children work hard and behave.
In general, Chinese know that children are necessary for safety and security. It is said that “even a big stone needs smaller ones underneath to keep it sound and solid”. Or more directly: “Small people (children) support big people (grownups).”
So the birth of a son is an occasion for great joy in the Chinese household. He is indulged and pampered in a way that would scandalize the child psychologists of the West. His childhood is a relative paradise. Everyone waits on him hand and foot. He is fondled and coddled by the grownups and carried piggyback by older brothers and sisters, even in their play. To protect him from “evil spirits”, he may wear a small padlock suspended from a thin chain around his neck. He may be dressed like a girl or given a girl’s name to fool the “malicious ones” into believing that he is not worth taking away. Until he is about two years old he doesn’t hear “don’t” or “no, no”, and he is rarely spanked before he is five or six.
Some of the oft-heard Taiwan sayings about this stage of child growth are:
—“A child brings more gaiety than three grownups put together.” In other words, a child is one-tenth joy and nine-tenths noise; a household without a child can hardly be a cheerful one.
—“Can eat, can grow; can cry, can live.” This is a baby care watchword that reminds parents to keep their children in good health. With the advent of modern medicine and a reduced rate of infant mortality, there is less need (or worry. Most children are just an appetite with a skin pulled over it. All you have to worry about are the table manners.
—“Sit at 7th (month after birth), crawl at 8th, and grow teeth at 9th.” Some do, some don’t—it’s an average.
—“A mouthful for the grownup fills up the baby.” This is another way of saying that since a child doesn’t cat much, the parents should give it the best to assure healthy growth. It’s also said that “a child is a stomach entirely surrounded by curiosity”.
Children are natural mimics who act like their parents in spite of every effort to teach them “good manners”. Each child is first taught to talk and then spanked for not keeping quiet. A Taiwanese would say: “A child should have ears but no mouth.”
“Cute at three, a fool at four, should be throttled at five” is another saying reserved for mischievous little ones.
“Spoil a pig and he messes up the kitchen; spoil a child and he becomes unfilial.” Most Taiwan parents believe that “an august father invariably has a filial son”, although at times "bad bamboos may produce good bamboo shoots; good bamboos may turn out nothing but crooked ones".
Admonitions
Some of the common admonitions for children are:
—“Eat like a horse, sleep like a log, watch with glaring eyes when it comes to work.”
—“Lai-hing cared mouth, cared not body.” Lai-hing was a boy who got sick from eating too much and not keeping clean.
—“Leave your hair half unshaved and you’ll never want to pay your debts.” This is a way to persuade the child to sit still in the barber’s chair.
—“A child carries three tu of fire.” A child should not be afraid of cold weather because he is full of vigor. Tu is a measure of capacity equivalent to nearly four gallons. But the Taiwanese also say “a baby has no sixth moon”, and tell mothers to clothe their babies adequately even during the hot 6th Moon (month) of the lunar calendar.
—“A daughter trying to teach her mother to cut a baby’s navel cord.” These are words for know-it-alls. “Don’t try to fly before you can walk” is a similar saying.
Taiwan’s codes of child care include these:
—“Shape your child when he’s small, or he won’t bend at all when he’s big.” People think a child’s character will be fixed by the time he is seven, as in the saying: “See how he’ll grow at three, see how he’ll behave at seven.”
—“A neighbor teaching his son makes your own son behave.” A similar saying:
“You spend a thousand pieces of gold on a house but may not have good neighbors for ten times as much.”
To Scold or Not
—“Scold your child whether he is right or wrong (when he quarrels with other children).”
—“Frequent scolding are not heard; frequent spankings are not felt.” But if all else fails, there may be consolation in the fact that “you may give life to a child but you can’t grasp his heart.”
“Rivers and mountains may be easily changed but it is hard to alter a man’s nature.” The word “man” in this saying may be replaced by “woman”, “boy” or “girl”; the Chinese do not specify. A less sophisticated saying is: “Good seeds never last; bad seeds never stop lasting.” This saying, however, usually stirs up an argument between man and wife, each insisting there can be nothing wrong with his or her seed.
Parents are people who spend half their time wondering how their children will turn out, and the rest of the time wondering when they’ll turn in. The people in Taiwan say:
—“The biggest fools are the parents.”
—“A mother who is anxious to see her child walk will exhaust herself running after him when he’s big enough to walk alone.”
—“Before you marry, don’t laugh at others’ wandering wives; before you have kids, don’t laugh at others’ crying kids."”
—“Dead sons are the best”—the same as “The fish you lose is the biggest.”
Brides and Babies
—“Newlywed brides and newly born babies are the hardest to deal with.” If you are lenient, you’ll spoil them and regret it. If you are too harsh, you’ll be criticized for being heartless.
—“Parental love is continuous, like the flowing waters of a big river; a child’s filial piety may be as brief as a gust of wind over the bare top of a tree (when the parents are old)”
—“You won’t know how your parents cared for you until you hold your first-born baby in your arms.”
—“Bite the fingers and each one hurts.” Parental love should be evenly distributed among children.
—“Love the flower, love the pot; love the children, love the grandchildren.” But the chances are “the grandparents love the eldest grandson most; the parents love their youngest child most”. Parents may be too busy with the smaller ones to take care of the bigger ones. Most grandparents pin their hopes to the eldest grandson’s rapid growth and early wedding so that they may become great grandparents.
An American father may spend thousands of dollars on his son’s education and get only a sponger. Taiwan sayings on father-son economic relations include:
—“Eat on father but work to boost one’s own savings.”
—“Think about father only after one’s fed.”
—“There’s no father-son tie at the gambling table.”
—“A spendthrift son for a miser father.”
—“It’s hard to have a merchant son.”
This saying is usually uttered behind the back of a tight-fisted man. Most people in Taiwan like to treat their foes as if they were “sons”, thus giving themselves a sense of superiority.
A man-child brings joy to the whole household, but a girl often brings only gloom and sometimes disgrace to the mother for her “unfilial inconsideration”. It is an old contention that “a perfect daughter is not equal to a club-footed son”. A son represents a permanent asset to the family, while “a girl is merchandise never sold at profit”. A son increases the family’s labor power and contributes to its material wealth, but a daughter is a liability. She cannot work as hard as a son, nor can she perform the all-important ancestral rites. She is destined, moreover, only to produce sons for someone else’s family, and her marriage is inevitably an expense. Ideas about girl babies have been greatly modified in modern Chinese society, and many women have distinguished themselves. But unfavorable Taiwan sayings are still heard.
For the Girl
—“The fate of a girl is the fate of leek.” The leek grows even after its tip is plucked; a girl should stand any hardship, as she may not be lucky with her husband.
—“A girl should learn all crafts, even the beggar’s.” This is another precaution against bad days with a bad husband.
—“A girl changes 18 times.” The saying applies to a girl’s character, physique, and face.
—“A boy grows until 25; a girl grows until her belly swells.”
—“A boy’s fate is never false; a girl’s fate is never true.” The word “fate” here stands for the time and date of birth used by fortune-tellers. Most parents change their daughters’ birthdays to make them more “marketable.”
—“The third daughter is the luckiest daughter.” It is believed that younger daughters generally turn out luckier than their elder sisters. They may not have younger sisters or brothers to look after. When they are about to get married, their married elder sisters and brothers are likely to shower them with gifts and encouragement.
—“Ten sons and ten daughters-in-law leave an old widow uncared for.” Mothers-in-law shouldn’t be too harsh or they’ll suffer for it.
—“Eat more on account of the baby, sleep longer on account of the baby.” Most babies in Taiwan sleep with their mothers and are breast-fed.
Foot binding symbolized the inferior status of women in Chinese society.
Although the custom is strictly forbidden today, one may still see older women hobbling along on their “golden lilies”. Two Taiwan sayings concerning foot binding are heard even now.
—“You need foot binding” is an expression used for little girls who run about wildly. Young mothers seldom use the saying since they, too, arc open to the same criticism.
—“Too late to bind your feet when your wedding date is near.” The mainland equivalent of this sayings is: “To embrace Buddha’s legs when in urgent need.”
Other miscellaneous Taiwan sayings on children include:
—“Before marriage, after childbirth.” The phrase refers to the times when one is supposed to have the greatest luck. These are the times when people buy more lottery tickets.
—“A sunken navel brings you gold; a projecting navel brings you a wife.” This is a popular saying among children, but it has not been scientifically researched.
—“Tender ginger is less hot.” The bigger the children grow, the less innocent they become.
—“Give me a picul of rice to carry but not a tiny kid to look after.” A picul is 100 catties or 132 pounds.
—“A rope for grandpa, a rope for pa.” Once a man bundled up his father and carried him up a mountain, to leave him there to starve, because the old man was no longer useful. His son went back again, saying that he was going to get the rope so that he might use it some day. The man repented and brought grandpa back.
—“To have children means toil but being without them means pain.”
What the Taiwan Chinese say about children only goes to prove it’s pretty much one world—“Toil and trouble”, “Needles and pins, needles and pins, when a man marries, his trouble begins”.
Who would have it otherwise