A Heathen Home in Western China
By Eva Allum
How would some of our busy housewives enjoy housekeeping in a home where there were no washing days, ironing days, or baking days; no carpets to beat or floors to wax or oil; no windows to clean, or curtains to wash and hang; no silverware or glass to polish? Wouldn’t housekeeping be easy with all these eliminated? On the other hand, how would you enjoy simply having two coarse, dark-blue dresses, one to wear while the other is being washed; rice three times a day, every day in the week; beaten earth floors entirely bare of carpets, linoleum, or even boards; no windows, except tiny openings in the wall, with a few bars to keep out intruders; chopsticks and bowls in place of silverware and china; no decorations on the wall except festoons of soot-laden cobwebs; no magazines or books; without God and without hope? This is as it is in thousands, yes, millions, of Chinese family homes. Directly opposite us in this city is an ordinary Chinese family, living in two rooms with mud walls and mud floors. This is a family of four,—the grandfather, his son, his daughter-in-law, and a little grandson. The front room serves as a shop, and at daylight the shutters, which are the upper half of the front wall, are taken down and placed across some benches to form tables or stalls. On these are exhibited for sale, peanuts arranged in handfuls (you get thirty handfuls for one cent gold), lengths of sugar cane, pomelos, matches, dried tobacco leaves, cigarettes, grass shoes, straw hats, string, eggs, pipe lighters, and various other odds and ends. The old man and his son attend to any early customers, while the daughter-in-law prepares the breakfast of rice and a bowl or two of relish. After breakfast the morning’s housework is soon finished. There are only six bowls and four pair of chopsticks to wash; then the large rice cooker is scrubbed with a brush made of split bamboo, the earth floor is swept in the center, and the chairs are wiped off. If the weather is fine, she may do any washing that is waiting. As the few pieces are mostly coarse blue cloth, they need no boiling or bluing, and water strained from the rice is used to stiffen any that need starching. The washing must be strung on bamboo poles across the front of the shop, as this home, like the majority of homes in this city, has no courtyard, and the only outlet is on the street. Her household duties attended to, she then helps in the shop, arranging peanuts in handfuls, peeling and quartering pomelos, weaving grass shoes, or braiding straw hats. The small boy also has to be cared for. Any spare minutes are used in sewing and embroidery, for she must make shoes, stockings, and hats for the family, as well as cut and make their garments, and pad comforters for the winter. Not many idle moments are hers, although many of her less industrious neighbors visit and gossip over their needlework. The old man attends to the sprinkling of the tobacco leaves on the stand by filling his mouth with water and ejecting it over the leaves; then he neatly piles the boxes of cigarettes and matches, his shaking hands finding it no small task to get the boxes just where he wants them. He then sits down to his string-making stand, which is about four feet high, with six bamboo pins around the top, and one reel of cotton suspended from each pin. He throws one reel across another, and keeps crossing the reels in turn, the finished string being similar to the tubular cord we used to make in our younger days by knitting on four pins in a spool. He makes three or four yards of this in a day, and it sells for about one cent gold a yard. But he is happy doing his share toward the support of the family. His son earns about ten cents a day as a sedan chair bearer. Because of their diligence and economy, this family are able to “go over the days” without actual want. They are a poor family, but there are thousands of poorer ones in this city. This family is hardly representative of those around; for in the surrounding homes gambling, wine drinking, and quarreling are part of the daily life, while the women spend a large part of their time gossiping with their neighbors. We find the inhabitants of Szechuan are most superstitious, and have a deep-rooted faith in their idol worship. If Paul had come to this field, he might well have said, “I perceive that in all things ye are very superstitious.” Their worship for the most part is for mundane purposes, and seldom for moral or spiritual development. Once a month the family described above light several candles and small sticks of incense, and place them in the cracks of their stand, fire off a string or two of firecrackers, and burn some sheets of paper,—and consider their duty toward the gods as done for that month. There is no communion with God in prayer, no yearning to partake of his moral and spiritual nature and share in his holiness, no looking for the blessed hope which is ours. How thankful we are that the Light has shone into several homes, and is giving the “knowledge of the glory of God,” and of his soon coming. Pray for the work in this field, that special power from on high may attend the message, and many homes may be brightened with the glorious hope of our Lord’s soon coming.