1937-04-22 — Page 10

10

THE

HONGKONG TELEGRAPH. THURSDAY,

APRIL

22, 1934.

:

F

A mother of four wrote this article. She called it-

Nothing ever happens to me

-but she has her family,

and her life is not really so uneventful.

❤

•

can

we

Songs Of Canton

SIR CECIL CLEMENTI'S

TRANSLATION

Annin, we see the girl, in the brief hour of her happincas, weaving words with her lover as they stand beside the ring-fence, while he writes on the whitewashed wall the lotus flower song wilch they have sung together: or reclining by her lover's side beneath the flowers' us they watch the moon grow round.

Of the literary works of Sir Cecil Clementi, late Governor of Hongkong and later of the Straits Settlements and High Commissioner for the Malay States, none is less known than his translation of the But suddenly she overhears the "Cantonesc Love Songs,”

chill words of men saying that the published in 1904 by the peacock and his mate will soon be Clarendon

the Oxford. torn apart. Then Prose,

spring Readers may therefore wel- shattered: yet she bravely takes up come this extract from Sir Cecil's scholarly introduction, together with one

poems.

both want some one to whom

tell everything.

of This girl'a all favourite garment Wis # Harris

OR ten years there has always been a baby in our

house: now there are just four little boys collecting and swopping cigarette cards.

tweed coal she Hiked Scolch people and ways! she yearned for an island of her own, somewhere in the Outer

this is part Hebrides. All

of me,

100.

You know being a mother isn't just bearing and nursing babies; it's a twenty-four hours a day job, seven days a week- even at night mothers sleep with one ear and one eye open.

Sometimes I think that nothing really interesting ever

There were many other points of happens to me, and yet I know that all the time I'm surrounded kinship between us. Finally, at the And the children keep on growing and developing end of the book, when I was nearly by miracles.

bursting with excitement, the girl

her

-growing away from me and developing their own personalities. had an accident which made

The other morning when I went into the night nursery to look different from other people. 11 get the boys up I was greeted with a shout of "Stick 'em up, may sound incredible, but I. too, buddy," and each child, even the youngest, whipped out a toy pistol have had a similar accident, Of course, when my bookself asked her from under his pillow. They call their guns "gats."

loved if he minded the niteration in her, he answered in the very words that my own love used. 50 some- thing does happen to me somėtimes.

I don't approve of this, but one has to keep up with the times.

My eldest boy anounced that eyes and rolls up his shirt-sleeves he'd joined an insurance society and is supremely happy.

run by another boy at school. They Our house is built on a slope, and A manicure

jay in a weekly premium of three

It's

elgarelte cards and receive a com- at the back, where the ground falls pensation of five cards for a deten- away, a cellar runs underzieath. We tion; and ten for a double detention, call is place the storehouse: twenty for a swishing. Afty for a real gloryhole. flogging, and a pulsion.

hundred for

QX-

The eldest

I

and be-

TAY to keep calm and unemalonat with the children, but there is so much to do and I get tired. Last night 1 cut It shelfers toy ents, an enormous eighty halls on eighty little Angers marble-topped washstand (which and toes! has had to be lugged upstairs to my

They're all different bedroom every time I've had a baby: When I was feeling low, one day LL my boys are different the nurses loved it because it didn't Alan threw his arms round me and A

matter what they spilled on it), four suid: "You're the bestest woman in in character.

both fair-ms in various stages of dilapida- the whole world-and the fattest!"

I am neither, I can assure you. and blue-eyed: the second tion, and some stray Beld mice."

There is not much time or money far

outside pleasures, Arriving

and

huired

boy

the youngest are

takes after me and the third, Morning scuffle

Max, is 10ke nobody except himself,

He is a merry little soul with twinkling eyes and dimples and on Independent spirit.

can always tell the home, on the rare occasions when 1 time by the sounds in our leave the children for a few hours. house. A ten lo eight the nursey I hurry upstairs to count the glasses and the boys of orange juice which overnight are Between the second child and flour is flung open, myself is an indefinable link, a feel- burst out, clattering along the land- put on the chest of drawers on the two, three, four. ing that does not exist between the ing to the bathroom,. After break- landing. One,

adore fast there is a terrifle rush and scuffle Thank God, they are all still alive others and me, although I then

elder boys off to and at least well enough to be having to get the two all. This boy--his -- ន

Ikone

their carly, morning cocktail. Alan-is no beauty; he has a podigy school.

noxe and a Jarge mouth, always

ready for a friendly sanile. But a "Where's my apple?" Alan shouts Good-night

every morning. It's always on the

look from his big brown eyes goes hall table wrapped in a paper bag straight to my heart.

I

15

the burden of her predestined sor row. Her lover is a young and

brilliant scholar, whose debt to his of the books summons for, although bright - mons him to pass examine-

Lions at

*

She

as a long sword, yet his brilliance has never left the sheath, The girt who loves him so tenderly cannot TARRIAGE in China. as in other jet her love stand in the way of his countries where the patriarchal advancement: she hopes to see him system is strong, and where ancestor one day arrayed in academic robes. worship is the chief cult of the and returning home in honour; but people, has become little else than the hour of parting, the very word an Institution for the birth. of

"parting"" haunts her. legitimate children. The principle sexual selection does not decide marriages in China: and, since bride

Therefore, two days and more be- and bridegroom frequently have never met before the wedding day, fore his departure, she whispers in where the bargain made by their his ear by the pillow-side her mes- parents is ratified love before mar- sage of good-bye-"Love, fair though

may be yet forget not your: is almost impossible, and love riage is

Swiftly sweetheart!"

the hours after marriage is rare enough.

Accordingly, view

in

The fact puss, long as she may that the forest of the

would arrest the setting that honourable lore.

ore, is hardly ever branches

AUTH

In a moment his charlot and n' thème of Chinese poetry, it is

will be st horses

the door. possible to regard much of the inn- gery which abounds in the Cantonese forces herself to mirth and laughter, light love

songs merely as euphemisms, so that her lover may go with forced on the poet by the nature of heart. Then he is gone northwards: with yearning eyes she follows the his subject.

carringe on its way, yet she is Jouth to stand at the door, lest her sorrow should be a mock to prying eyes. Many metaphors are indeed

When he is out of sight, the girl trite that in Chinese they wearecly bear the poetic value which resulla retires to her chamber and there from the translation into English. at last the pent-up heart finds "Arbours of flowers and willow" relief In long and heavy weeping, "haunts

of vapoir and flowers, Nature tries to comfort her, but the "rouge and powder," the "world of song of the oriole, the fragrance of flowers, and other such expressions, the flowers, and the vernal season

and to her

her woa. in a lonely have only one possible meaning to a only

thereby lose Chinese and

some bedroom she faces the red lamp set Bing of the delicney which they re- on her table, and in futile effort tain for English ears,

raises in her hand a cup so that its But, if this is true on the one hand, shadow on the wall may drlude her it must be remembered none the less into seeming less forlorn. Then she that in China the position of a cour- seeks rest in sleep, and in sleep she 1esan is

than dreams of reunion with her lover. for less degraded

SiO

The Wounded Spring

men.

The bird cries; the flower falls; the spring has a hidden wound. The man in old age, as he muses over the bruised flower, feels. broken in spirit. Green spring itself believes that there are those who pity its sadness: Yet I fear that we, playthings of rouge and powder, must drift desolate all our life long. I cannot tell whose love is strong or whose is fickle, Commonly CREEP into the night nur

a perverse fate betrays the rosy girl to heartless with his name on it. Leslie, the

sery. They are sleeping 1s elder brather comes home elder boy, wants 311⁄2d. for tuck, peacefully, all in a row-two single

To-day the butterfly is gone, deserting an open flower: on whom, I eleven o'clock milk

fare beds, a large col, and a smaller one. and his from school with his friends:

then, can I rely? seldom have the odd At the end of the baby's cot (I still have to fetch Alan-he is only seven home.

Although he gets

Ah! My throat is stifled with sobbing. --and we come home on a bus. All ha penny, so he ofien gets 4d. He call him the baby,

When-I-think how the jade jewel is shattered and fragrance the conductors, like Alan: he always must make a good bit on that extra indignant-about-it-completely.

bald, exhausted Teddy Bear stares raises his cap to them.

buried, I cannot check the tears which fall from my two eyes. up at the ceiling; u chocolate

box filed with miscellaneous treasures is firmly wedged in the next cot.

Over the rail at the head of each LAN loves gardening and

THE other day 1

be- also the gardener, who

experience: I cot hangs a tiny knitted cont comes and leans on a spade for met myself in a book. The author is longing to the golliwogs clasped in half-day

week. During a well-known modern poet whom I the arms of the two little boys.

The citest child has an airplane school holidays they have their have never met, who cannot possibly "clovenses" together in the store- know me. On the very first page of book under his ciderdown: Alan's house: a glass of beer and enormous the book I had a strange feeling of bed is bumpy with woolly animals portions of bread and butter and intimacy and understanding towards being kept warm: he is very tender- cheese for the gardener. and the heroine, who wasn't a heroine hearted. I bend down to itiss each and gently stroke his silky lemonade and biscuits and cheese at all, Just an ordinary person like child for the gardener's boy.

myself, full of negative for a friend: hair: I will try to be a better mother Alan pulls his cap down over his like me, she was motherless, and we to-morrow,

Elevenses

AL

once

ha'penny.

I meet myself

thrilling

had

1

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Hark! the sudden scream of the nations. Sold among

goose has divorced the wedlock of by her parents at an early age. sacrifice to the poverty of her family, her dreams. It is the carrier-goose, bul come without' letter from her or mortgaged by her husband for a

Is he, then, grown careless? term of years in payment of house- lover. hold debts, the little girl or the wife Or was it mere indolence in writing? is bought by women, whose infamous If, then, he has unsent letters written trade it is, either to resell their bar in his mind, let him send the empty their cover: so that, spreading out the gain at a profit or to train acquisitions for the life to whiels un blank paper, le fond girl may ima- Pecuniary gine it holds ten thousand words. evil fate doomed them. necessity, not vice of character, as He promised to write: but, as aho, been in China the chief cause of counts up the days upon her Anger- tips, she reckons that a full hulf- meretricious sin.

She

It is as the solution of a problem year has gone by without news. In in domestic economy that the father lapse of time comes despate.

the thinks of suicide: but fears to die sells his unknowing child, or husband pawns his wife, though in omiss, lest dying she should say the latter case the vietiin must be "Would I might die once more!""

n consenting party to the bargain."

Debt has been known to make

•

•

woman mortgage her person: while

Then comes the reproaches of her

по payments. The

on occasion the Chinese Government "pocket mother," who sees old ac- has sold, as a source of revenue, girls quaintances draw back and no new arrive. The ledgers show who for their own fault have been guests discarded by their family. But it is debts only, always econonie necessity, and Marine Magistrate and his Police scarcely ever free choice, that sets storm and threaten as they levy the women to walk in "Willow Lane and "Rouge-tax," to supply pin-money for ladies of the Imperial Palace; and Flower Street,"

even excess of sorrow is better than the judge's gate.

by

It is a sad picture, with the pathos For this cause an intense sadness broods over the lives of these young of un intense realism. The life here by thousands of described is lived girls. "Wide, wide is the sen bitterness: ill-fated be more than throughout the length and breadth half therein." Escape is wellnigh of the Chinese Empire, and withal be belleve to Impossible. It can be attained only lived in so humble a resignation to

one of two means. Either the that which these girls bell

deep nd- girl must by her sin save money sul- their predestined fate, as may well felent to ransom herself from the move the bystander io life to which she has been from the miration of the extraordinary solsce life to which she has been destined; which the Buddhist faith, imported a foreign country, mistrans if more fortunate, she may, be from

lated, misunderstood, altered beyond "true-hearted, Sucat-gallant, whose the recognition of its worship to the love will bring her safe to shore," chief cult of the people, of either as his wife or concubine. This Eighteen Provinces.

or,

is the one ray of hope which lights

up the gloom.

in

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OUR BRITISH CROSSWORDS

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1 Encountered a doctor, a student

of theoretical philosophy.

10 In the open you might find it

tedious.

11 Sounds like a erack angler,

certainly.

12 Though belonging to us, turned

sour, I'm afraid.

13 Sailors in distress and others -will find a welcome here.

14 Trade name for linoleum. 17 You should have no dificulty in

getting it unfastened,

18 Sounds made by malcontents

and houyhnhnms.

19 Tallors?

21 The

the

Kill Kidney

Trouble Quick

In a series of varled pictures the Cantonese Songs describe for us the ife of such a girl: We see her at the toilet-table braiding her hair, with the significance of a love-spell every action: for, as slic parts her hair so will her lover part all trouble and came to her: the centre of her headdress symbolizes the concentra trouble and Bladder weakness have Thousands of sufferers from Cidney tion of her heart: the roots of the stopped Getting Up Nights: Leg Pains, hair and the ends of the tresses Circles Under yes, wellen Ankjes,

will signs that she

follow Nervournean, Btiffness, fheumatism, Diz- How, zinosa, Lumbago, Turning Itching, Smarts her love to the end: the flowerning, Acidity and tons of vigour by a she wears

are emblematic of her ter new discovery called Cyntex (Blas

fox). (entty soothsa, tones, elsand, and flower-debts and will win hor the bytex parte purrying your blood rings V more kidnaya. in 15 minutes the Cyster favour of the Flower King:

now howith, youth and vitality in 48 hours, "moon roses" will gain her the pre-Guaranteed to and your troubles in 3 days tention of the Old Man in the Moon, or money back. Ost Crater at all cheminia

Dre

nearer you get to this the

better.

25 Ingredient of all pills,

20 You'll have to bend down for.

this.

-27 Has lots of teeth, but can't bite.. 30 The Royal Navy, for example. 31 Berkshire town,

32 Here you must put trust in the

unworthy.

2 Came In.

DOWN

-3 Eager for a sixpence?

4 Say hen (onag.).

5 Riddled. This lea treatment which sugar sometimes, under- KOOR.

0 The price one has to pay. 7. This is entertaining, and sels

one a-thinking.

8 They are fair game for the (hy- light-hearted, certainly phen, 7, 6).

134

114

9 This is built of marbled stone,

15 Audible evidence of a relaxation

of the senses..

18 Writer greatly appreciated by

nomadic Arabs as well countless other readers,

да

20 Enthusiastic comment on a batsman, or, maybe, a club (two words, 4, 3).,

22 May be upset in the English

Channel without much danger. 23 Not, these. *

24. Dog of no particular breed. 20 Sallors say the Marines believe

him. 20 tang up, but left no message.

Yesterday's Solution.

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