Page:Chinese Life in the Tibetan Foothills.djvu/59

Rh A person is taken near a wall, then blindfolded, turned round several times, and told to walk to the wall; mo chao pi 摸照壁.

Blindman's buff, ta hsia mo 打瞎摸; hide and seek, ts‘ang mao mao 藏貓貓 (the seeker being the mao or cat); marbles, tan tan tan 彈; turning cart wheels, or turning like a kestrel ta yao-tzŭ fan shên 打鷂子翻身; a kind of hockey ta ch‘ou niu 打臭牛, ‘to hit the stinking ox’; top-spinning, ch‘ai ti ko tzŭ 扯地鴿子; swinging, ta ts‘ui 打鞦; are all familiar pastimes.

Kiteflying, fang fêng-chêng 放風箏 in the second moon is done by grayheaded men as well as by children. The kites are in the shape of eagles, bats, etc., etc., and if one should fall on a house it is unlucky and no one dare claim it. The shuttle-cock in the game t‘i chien-tzŭ 踢毽子 is a brass cash with a few feathers attached; it is kept in the air by using the side of the foot for a battledore. Experts turn round once after each kick.

To turn to a different class of pastime: eagles are kept for catching birds and rabbits, fang ying 放鷹. The sport is so exciting that a proverb says: ‘After seeing an eagle catch a rabbit the glory of an official career sinks into insignificance.’

Game is hunted with a kind of setter, fang lieh ch‘üan 放獵犬 or fang nien shan kou 趝山狗. These dogs have long tapering noses and slight bodies.

The musk-deer is hunted, shuan chang-tzŭ 拴獐子 for the musk. A coolie carrying a small quantity of musk can easily be detected by the smell. The deer horns are sold for medicine and the skin for leather.

Jackdaws and various other birds are kept for fighting purposes fang ch‘üeh ta ts‘ai 放鵲打彩; which means gambling.

Practising with bow and arrows, ts‘ao kung chien 操弓箭 is a sport now going out of use. So is the exercise of the heavy knife, shua ta tao 耍大刀. These knives weighed 80 to 140 catties, and even more.

Many pets are kept, such as the green parrot, ying ko 鸚哥; the Liao-tung or black parrot, liao ko 遼哥; the