Page:The Chinese Boy and Girl.djvu/28

Rh sample of what might be produced on a score of other subjects:

A well-known characteristic of the Chinese is to do things opposite to the way in which we do them. We accuse them of doing things backwards, but it is we who deserve such blame because they antedated us in the doing of them. We shake each other's hands, they each shake their own hands. We take off our hats as a mark of respect, they keep theirs on. We wear black for mourning, they wear white. We wear our vests inside, they wear theirs outside. A hundred other things more or less familiar to us all, illustrate this rule. In some of their nursery rhymes everything is said and done on the "cart before the horse" plan. This is illustrated by a rhyme in which when the speaker heard a disturbance outside his door he discovered it was because a "dog had been bitten by a man." Of course, he at once rushed to the rescue. He "took up the door and he opened his hand." He "snatched up the dog and threw him at a brick." The brick bit his hand and he left the scene "beating on a horn and blowing on a drum."

Tongue twisters are as common in Chinese as in English, and are equally appreciated by the children. From the