the kite-flying season, and is supposed to promote longevity. During
that season, which lasts several months, the Chinese people the sky
with dragons, centipedes, frogs, butterflies, and hundreds of other
cleverly devised creatures, which, by means of simple mechanisms worked
by the wind, roll their eyes, make appropriate sounds, and move their
paws, wings, tails, etc., in a most realistic manner. The festival
originated in a warning received by a scholar named Huan Ching from
his master Fei Ch'ang-fang, a native of Ju-nan in Honan, who lived
during the Han dynasty, that a terrible calamity was about to happen,
and enjoining him to escape with his family to a high place. On his
return he found all his domestic animals dead, and was told that
they had died instead of himself and his relatives. On New Year's Eve
(_Tuan Nien_ or _Chu Hsi_) the Kitchen-god ascends to Heaven to make
his annual report, the wise feasting him with honey and other sticky
food before his departure, so that his lips may be sealed and he be
unable to 'let on' too much to the powers that be in the regions above!


Sports and Games

The first sports of the Chinese were festival gatherings for purposes
of archery, to which succeeded exercises partaking of a military
character. Hunting was a favourite amusement. They played games of
calculation, chess (or the 'game of war'), shuttlecock with the feet,
pitch-pot (throwing arrows from a distance into a narrow-necked jar),
and 'horn-goring' (fighting on the shoulders of others with horned
masks on their heads). Stilts, football, dice-throwing, boat-racing,
dog-racing, cock-fighting, kite-flying, as well as singing and dancing
marionettes, afforded recreation and amusement.