1958-02-15 — Page 8

Matt! let. 2.23

THE CHINA^ MAIL, SATURDAY, FEBRUARY 15, 1958.

Trouble looms ahead

in the Year of "DOG & DIRT"

Do you believe in "the signs? Are YOU superstitious? that Chinese in Hongkong

And most important of all, do YOU believe the will future can bó foretold?

celebrate New

Year in very much the

If you do, then, you have cause for alarm os there name spirit as they have are a number of soothsayors in Hongkong who have made a caroful study of the stars and other mystorious signs, and are cure 1958 "The Year of the Dog and Soll" is going to be a most critical period for the whole world.

But all is not

lost. The sooth-

sayers also say

that if we sur-

vive the year

of "Dog and

always done. Perhaps, with even more firecrackers!

Proparations for the festivities actually

1

says GERRY

Dirt", it will be follow starting education, or for

and businessmen exploiting new plenty that awaits us in enterprisen.

by

prosperity

1959 the year of "Pig nud Gold".

las

It means they may out on a whole year's effort Quite different to the before they get establish Western way of thinking, ed. the dog to the Chineso is not man's best friend, but

watch

rather, man's night abar

and infermier . binger of ill. tectar also.

But

began

XAVIER

on February 11-the 24th IL day of the 12th moon, was then that old-fashioned families bade cloquent fare- well and gave up offerings to the household gods who have returned to the heavens

It is not strunge that thene philosophers had also something to say about the

to a pro- weather for the year 1958, since China has always de- pendent 50 Inguly on agriculture.

It is in this light that soothsayers, saw the flying dog kennel travelling t furlous sprl around the Earth, and what it may portend.

Weather

an

TX forecasting this

almanac called the Tung Sing was sought..

They say: the dog is ill ease; that something at

The pages of this book lurks in the dark around us. And mon the world over,

were turned deftly to where should regard this "stir in it showed, in printer's ink, the air" AH something drawing depicting Chinese ominous, and tread their husbandry. ground carefully, lest they be the ones to touch off the beginning of what may lead to a holocaust.

Like

depressing tings, bad omens too da not come singly.

other

report their fulfilment of another year's duty as guardians of the homes.

The days that followed this have been busy ones for cleaning housewives house, steaming puddings, preparing red paper en- velopes, pasting good luck inscriptions on doors,

and seeing to it that hubby before settles all the bills the old year is out.

A dirty home on Now The drawing portrays a Year's day may mean that young farmer leading some of yesterday's mis- buffalo through the fields. fortunes remain. An un- The sun is at a high angle settled debt portends finan- in the eastern sky, but the cial difficultica. crops, hathed luxuriantly by its rays, stand in a dip in the fields.

On the eve of the big

Here, the peach blossome, day, all filial sons and un- the "hanging bells",

the married daughters join in narcissus, and other flowers dinner nt their parents' home and remain there till are displayed in stalls in all

their grandeur. late, to herald in the New Year.

For The soothsayers

My attention was drawn again say that because the coming Chinese New Year to the fact that the young will be without the Estab- farmer wore shoes. ishment of Spring (Feb-

The interpretation: a dry ruary 4). called Larp year to follow.

it depicts a

In Hongkong, a visit to "blind year". One that But despite what the the flower market is another will be unlucky for children soothsayers my, it is clear *must".

nun,

RESERVATIONS

very

UP COUNTRY by THUALOW CRAIG

A snug new home for

a vole-in a doll's house

reported the descent of a amall spaceship on the mountainside during a stormy night, so when I took the gun out a couple of days later to get the wherewithal for a pigeon ple I kept a keen lookout for visitors from some far-off planet.

This was no alien.

. nothing but a vole

and 17

nol mice, but I have always called them mice ara will If they materialised I always do so. Moreover, would offer them free know that voles are very easy to tame and positively revel in captivity provided they have company and lote to enh

tenancy of our doll's house, which is no longer used, its owner having grown up.

And it was while sitting on a bare rock, eating my cold bacon sandwich, gaz ing over the view down across our peaceful valley, that I saw movement.

Lika u button

An active little body lesped up on to a huge black rock about & hund.od yards Away and then turned into a perfect sphere, looking like a button on

• loot.

Hosching into my haversack for the powerful one-eyed glase I always enry, it was soon

Strength through Masry mÀJ be Rome people's idea of bliss, but Happiness through Gluttony

is the vok's notion of heaven. In

ether words, a vole's heart is in his tum, but please don't overdo this if considering the acquist- tien of a family vole.

Many years ago I learned the lesson when I caught my first one. Being essentially á kind plution myself, I put a little pot of mlik and a farge strong

mabe..of

cheero into b. box Within Ave minutes of being captured he had taken a huge drink and was wading Into the cheese. A little later I paid him

visit to find him dead. Ho sd eaton every spot of chebee and succumbed to a surfeit of it. It was a beautiful death, maybe,

focussed on the tiny alien, quite but my heart was broken and I

round, covered in short, thielt never made the same fur, and with what I at fist goin assumed to be a emall-sized atomic space blaster.

On closer Inspection this turned out to be a short, blunt I crept round to see what the other side looked ilke. Apprrently the visitor was unarmed.

Cursing fury

mistake

Now 1 crept round to the bick of my

From thy now vele. nocket 1 picduced a thick shol- bag and opened the pucker~ atrlag. Stretching out an arm, 1 gently solzed the small ball by However, I crept on in the loose skin of his back, cautious flanking movement whereupon. he was converted 0 strugging morecl "of ready to shoot first and apologist Into tater. o Wild Bill Hickok, cursing. fury, until I was in front of the

Then at the strike of twelve, casions such as birthdays and the whole of the Colony is wedding. And a feast is not a awaken by the clamorous sound fcast without firecrackers, of exploding firecrackers...

From these setbacks also, the non-humanoid alien and within in Chinese inherit their conception 30 or 30 yards. Again I trained

my glass on it, but from and still more Brecrackers the many hours to follow.

of religion, philosophy, patience angles it was spherical and and diligence.

about 21. in diameter,

Como what may life has ups and downs. The year of "Dog and Dirt" will come in as well heralded as those before it.

The year's bad omena are 0 good excuse to let off more fire- crackers. And even the sooth- savers ata not too despondent

One of the main reasons for At home, and befor this 19 that Ching, twelve, the superstitious far back as history records, suffered from wars, housewife is again busy, has This time she is putting tamines, flood and more than her plague, sickness, end away out of sight certain shore of

direase. Life has always been household commodities like grin and difcuit, and occasions the broom. knives, and for celebration have been few. other sharp instruments. From these setbacks, stem about the portents. Will wo not These signify bad luck and

love Lor noise, bright have the "Pig and Gold" to dissension.

colours and lighta on happy oc-, follow

n

But don't be too unhappy

the next is "PIC & GOLD"

MANDRAKE THE MAGICIAN

THAT ONE

CAUGHT HIAT THERE HE

I'LL BE

WE'VE LOST THE RADAR IMAGE OF THAT) --ER-FLYING

HORSET

IT'S NO LONGER

FLYING. IT LANDED ON A ROOF... HERE'S

THE PHOTO

ail

Then I saw bright black eyes and dark whiskers. Two litle hands hung neatly down.

Contemplation

An hour later he was in the which hed been doll's house made mate with real mosquito netting over windows and depre In the living-room there was a last year's wron's nest which we had found abandoned. Nothing could be warmer, safer, or shugger.

But our Mr Vold wes quite warm enough and felt safe in the little kitchen, where he was fucking into a carefully balanced ration of a thimbleful of warm milk and a small piece of mild house, cheese.

Alas, this was no alien, su I wouldn't be able to offer it the bospitality of the doll's nar exercise my talent for tele- pathy. It was nothing but a As I write this he is lounging vole that had climbed above the in his collage door with the "min timberline to practise a bil of warming his little body, walling yoga and contemplate-its navel

in the sun.

But wait!

for the mate that we have promised to provide.

Why not convert Within & low weeks that the doll house fato a mouse cottage is going to need another house? I know that voles are wing.

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