The Birmingham age-herald., 1905-11-19
FLOWERY KINGDOM TOPSY-7URVY LAND John Chinaman at Home Leads
 a aQuoer Life HE TRAINS FISH TO FIGHT Cricket Flghts Arc Also Popular, chInaman VIII Eat Almost Any thing and Does Everything
 BacIc~ard-Customs.

seem to be upside down, and 1t is the unexpected only that happens, says E. J. Hardy. in his interesting book, "John | Chinaman at Home," just published by l the Scribners. Meeting a friend, Chi- nese shakes his own hands and not the hand of his friend. which is more sani- tary than is our custom. If he wants a man to keep away, he makes the same movement of his hand. which we make when we wish him to come to us He laughs when he announces the death of relative and a Chinese bride cries at her wedding.
 If you go into the office of an Euro pean whose hat Is on his head ho will take It on; If you go to where Chinese Is sitting with his cap on the table in front of him, he will put on the cap. A servant in China should wait at table with his cap on. At a Chinese enter tainment the post of honor is at the left and not at the right. as with us | If 1t is dinner, 1t will begin, con- | trary to ours, with desert, and end with soup and rice. At home dogs are tied up; | In China, cats are, at least, those be- longing to boat people
 The Chinese are not only our antipodes with regard to position on the globe, but they are our opposites in almost every thought and act. Our shoes are all blackened, the Chinese whiten the sides and soles of theirs. To us obser- vation without sympathy Is torture but the Chinese seem to like to be observed working, eating. or whatever they are doing.
 Mourning Color Is White. The mourning color in China Is white and not black, and the Chinese must think of a white cloth upon a dinner table as dismal as we would a table covered with black crepe. When for eigners come first to China they notice that men wear petticoats and women trousers. As a matter of fact, both sexes wear these latter. only peasant women. whom foreigners must see have neither petticoat or frock, but only long jack ct; and the literary men. that is to say. the gentlemen of China. wear a long outer robe.
 A Chinese wears waistcoat over his coat and not under as we do. We use our hands to play battledore and shuttle cock; the Chinese have no battledore and kick the shuttlecock If British boy Is puzzled, say, in doing a sum. he scratches his head, but a Chinese boy kicks off a shoe and scratches foot. Chinese babies are carried not in front | in the arms of their mothers. but upon their backs.
 Fond of Children. T The Chinese are fond of their children. though they pet them one minute and beat them the next. They seem to prefer birds to animals. Where we would bring dog for a walk, they carry in a cage a singing bird, generally the yellow-eye- browed thrush. They do not indulge in cock fighting. as did our ancestors, but they train quails, thrushes and even fish to fight. Two bottles, in either of which is fish, are placed alongside; when the fish grow angry with each other beu f,la In Uh her they fight it out.
 Crickets, too, have an important place in the Chinese world. Two at time are put on fiat tray with deep rim and are tickled on their heads with hair until they get In rage and charge each other. When the victor of many fights dies. he Is sometimes honored with a silver coffin. Even those who do not train crickets for the arena keep them in tiny bamboo cages and earthenware jars because they are fond of their chirp- ing.
 What a Chinaman does not eat is not worth eating. Everything from root to leaf, from hide to entrails, goes into his interruptions stomach. Hawks. owls and other omnivorous creatures find their match in him, and are eaten by him. The attendants of sportsman gladly eat the badger, civet cat or fox which he kills.
 The bills, feet and insdes of poultry
 
 can tell what are in Chinese dumplings. patties and sausages. The colored drinks on the stalls look unintelligible even though samples of the fruit from which they purport to be decocted are beside them. A receptacle contains egg soup. We know this because unbroken eggs are placed near 1t to show that they are In 1t A thirst for knowledge made me try everything. Never venture, never win," was my motto. What looked like broth of abominable things was in their vessels, but I was occasionally agreeable surprised when, greatly dar- ing tasted 1t.
 A caldron worthy of the witches in I Macbeth could be filled by few Chi nese bucksters. One could contribute eye of newt and toe of frog, another several kinds of lizards, third black beetles and grasshoppers. In barrel are what look ed like dried prunes What are tflose? you ask a grinning Chinaman. Popping one into his mouth. he answers, That belong cocky-loachee. Velly good" They are dried cockroaches.
 A cooiie picks up from street stall with a wire provided for the purpose and eats a piece of candied ginger. of lotus root, of melon, and of everything in the collection. For each tit-bit he pays a cash or a fortieth part of a penny.
 socIable Drink Unknown. | D sake in China On occasions when our men treat each other to a so-called friendly glass of beer the ~hinese eat together the sociable seed of melon. So fond is everyone of the dried melon seeds that you may have in some places melon for nothing if you give back the seeds Samshu, the alcoholic spirit us- ually drunk, is distilled from rice. but people only take 1t in small quantities and then almost invariably with food. Water is always drunk hot. which guards against disease.
 Chinese proverb says that 1t Is we'll always to have something in the mouth. 50 when one has nothing better to eat he chews sugar cane or munches pea nuts. Confucius ate little, but was never without ginger when he ate. His disci- ples are more inclined to follow the sec ond part of this rule than the first. The Chinese are nearly as fond of pickles as are British soldiers-pickled cabbage, pickled onions, and they like fruit when both salted and sugared.
 With soy sauce anything will go down. Earthworms when fried crisp are rel ished, and So are sikworms, when they have done their work and nothing can be got out of them. Locusts are thought to have . better flavor and to be moro nutritious if they are thrown into boiling 1ou vhau alivA