Logo
Prev
Bookmark
Rotate
Print
Next
Contents
All Pages
Related Articles
Browse Issues
Help
Search
Home
'
National Geographic : 1936 Dec
Contents
PEIPING'S HAPPY NEW YEAR Photograph by Branson De Cou from Galloway CHINESE FOOT TRAFFIC SEEMS TO HAVE THE RIGHTS OF ALL WAYS Pedestrians often throng the middle of the street, just as they did for centuries before side walks were laid. Here a soldier, and citizens in long silk or cotton gowns, crowd past two rick shas. When first imported to Peiping, about 50 years ago, rickshas were denounced by the carters' guild, whose members asserted that the two-wheeled conveyances would relegate men to the status of beasts of burden. The thickest clouds of incense smoke rise in front of the shrine to the God of Wealth. Who in Peiping and the whole world does not worship and court the favor and gifts of that popular potentate? Decidedly sought after is the "Old Man under the Moon," who arranges marriages. There is a belief that a parent may find an ideal mate for his son or daughter by borrowing, unknown to either, a scarlet cord from this deity. If this is tied across the door on the eve of the New Year and is touched by the person, he or she will be married that year. That the god is very "efficacious" is known to all. Great is the fame of the bronze mythical beast, popularly thought by Peiping wor shipers to be a humble donkey, which may be found in a room at the rear of the temple. You have only to touch that part of its body corresponding to where you ail to have a speedy recovery (page 787). The high flames from mountainous offer ings of bundles of incense and the throngs pressing through the well-kept halls of wor ship transport one back some centuries to a peaceful world that knew nothing of the newfangled doubts that beset our times. It is, nevertheless, a relief to step into the large paved courtyard where ancient ever greens let dappled sunlight fall upon the stone flooring and upon the innumerable rows of imperial tablets given by rulers of old. Here are games in which people try to hoop a clay dog or teacup (page 761), while long neat counters serve alfresco meals. Surrounding the main courtyard is a series of small rooms, in which are installed the figures of 72 judges and the victims they are sentencing, not to mention the demons who stand by to see that everything will be carried out as commanded. The hapless souls are doomed to pay the penal ties in purgatory (page 773). 765
Links
Archive
1937 Jan
1936 Nov
Navigation
Previous Page
Next Page