electric lights, electric cars, cuckoo clocks, Swiss watches
and indeed all the great inventions of modern times. The
boy was t'ao ch'i, and the eunuchs say that if he were
thwarted in any of his undertakings, or denied anything he
very much desired, he would dash a Swiss watch, or anything
else he might have in his hand, to the floor, breaking
it into atoms; and as there was no chance of using the rod
there was no way but to spoil the child.

It is amusing to listen to the women in a Chinese home
when a baby comes. If the child is a boy the parents are
congratulated on every hand because of the "great happiness"
that has come to their home. If it is a girl, and there
are more girls than boys in the family, the old nurse goes
about as if she had stolen it from somewhere, and when she
is congratulated, if congratulated she happens to be, she
says with a sigh and a funereal face, "Only a 'small happiness'--
but that isn't bad."

When a child is born it is considered one year old, and its years
are reckoned not from its birthdays but from its New Year's days.
If it has the good fortune to be born the day before two days old
it is reckoned two years old being one year old when born and two
years old on its first New Year's day.

The first great event in a child's life occurs when it is
one month old. It is then given its first public reception.
Its head is shaved amid kicking and screaming, its mother is up
and around where she can receive the congratulations of her
friends, its grandmother is the honored guest of the occasion,