Evening Star Newspaper, September 27, 1931, Page 69

The Sunday Stat agasine PART: 7. WASHINGTON,; . D. C., SEPTEMBER 27, 1931. 20 PAGES. — China Rescues the Moon Each Year at This Time the Chinese Join in a Round of Festive, Semi-Religious Ceremontes Designed to Protect the Moon, a “‘Silver Rabbit,” From a Heavenly Hound That Once Pursued It Across the Sky Until Frightened Off by the Rites of the Faithful. “They were grouped around a long altar table. On the altar was a foot-high replica of & rabbit.” BY JAMES W. BENNETT Author of “The Manchu Cloud,” “Chinese Blake” and other books UST as at Christmas the Western World forgets its Amany troubles for a few brief hours, so in the “Land of Chin” the yearly mid-Autumn festival to the moon offers its transient annual moment of peace on earth, good will to men. On that ancient lunar calendar of China to which the people still cling so stubbornly, the holiday s celebrated on the fifteenth day of the eighth moon. This, by our comparatively modern Christian reckoning, fell this year upon the 26th day of September. My initiation into the mysteries of this holi- day was not peaceful. In fact, as the time for the festival approached, my Shanghai house- hold began to verge upon chaos. My cook— instead of preparing a roast—was spending his - entire time baking round “moon cakes.” My No. 1 boy was laying in a huge supply of fire- crackers—at my expense. Worse than that, he was testing them at odd, inopportune mo- ments, such as at 5 o’clock in the morning or when I was trying to use the telephone. I tried to shame my servant into a more nor- mal routine by quoting an old Peking proverb: “Men do not worship the moon in mid-Autumn; women do not sacrifice to the Kitchen God at New Year.” But the boy—that indispensable combination of valet and interpreter and major domo—waved aside my words. “That belong North China talk, Mastah. Here, in Shanghsai, man makee plenty good time to worship moon; not just woman. Eat, drink, gumble, makee song, makee laugh, makee plenty gumble——" “yYes, 1 know!” I interrupted. “You'll gumble any time! Each month, Waung, you gumble away your next month's wages and then come to me to borrow more. But this holiday, maybe you’ll save a little money, be- cause we're going to Hangchow to see it. So you had better start packing my coatie and shirtie.” ¥ servant's face fell. But at the prospect of a journey, even a short one, he bright- ened. A few moments later I could hear him moving with blithe fury in the confines of my bed room. And as he packed his voice was raised in that shrill falsetto so admired by the Chinese. He sang of Changngo, the beautiful woman who drank the elixir of immortality, lost her center of gravity and was carried to the moon. The loss was apparently permanent, for she is still thought to remain there. I had chosen Hangchow, for I had been told that here one saw the moon feast celebrated according to ancient Chinese custom. Shang- hal was too modern, too iconoclastic. I arrived in Hangchow just at sunset. The air was a clear autumnal blue, the sky cloud- less—for the Chinese have a way of conjuring up perfect weather for their holidays that is bewildering to foreigners. As L started out following supper, a queer sound came rolling toward me on the evening air; a babble of distant human voices, a beat- ing of gongs, the firing of crackers. I walked down the hill toward the lake just as a rim of the moon, ruddy gold, thrust itself above an old crenellated wall to the east. This glimpse was the occasion for the sounds to increase, to take on a certain exalted fury. Crackers were detonated until the city gave the impres- sion of being under rifle fire. Individual voices rose, shrill and passionate. These sgemed to be the cries of women and children, although an occasional masculine shout could be distin- guished. China, religiously so phlegmatic and unemotional, was throwing off its repression tonight. It was giving the orb beloved of the people a beautiful and spontaneous welcome. A dozen kiosks had been set up on the shore of Lake Su Wu, that lovely and serene body of water pictured on a million Chinese fans. These bamboo frameworks, covered with em- broidered banners, held Buddhist priests. The followers of Gautama had come from temples in the city, from shrines on the lake, from hill- side monasteries. As the moon finally emerged above the walls, a perfect circular disk, the priests began to chant in a minor key. Yet there was no unanimity about their singing, no laison be- tween the various kiosks. They were indi- vidualists, those Followers of the Eightfold Path! Peculiarly enough, their cacophony did not greatly trouble the ear; the sounds seemed to whirl upward, to lose themselves in the moonlight. In the center of each group sat the bonze, the head priest, gorgeous in robes incrusted with gilt. He led the chanting. At the com- pletion of each mantra he told off beads on a jade and crystal string which he wore looped about his wrist. His satellites occasionally whanged vigorously at brass disks or gongs, clashed cymbals or sawed mournfully upon two stringed fiddles. Never, so far as I could tell, did they preserve the slightest vestige of rhythm. AT intervals one of the lesser priests would throw himself upon his knees, facing the moon, and thump his forehead on the hard- packed earth of the beach. I turned to my No. 1 boy. “See here, Waung, these priests are Bud- dhists.” 3 “Oh-a, yes.” «But there’s nothing in the Buddhist faith, is there, about worshiping the moon?” “My think not, mastah.” «“Then"—I posed the question sternly—“then why are these priests doing precisely that?” My servant’s eyes batted. He scratched hig black, bristly hair, remaining silent for a mo= ment, then he spoke: « “But, Mastah, in China men have worshiped the moon for long, long time. One t'ousand year, two t'ousand, t'ree t'ousand, fo’ t'ousand, fiv' t'ousand, six t'ousand—" 3 “All right, boy; stop counting!” “Chinese men have worshiped moon for long time. These men”—pointing a brown finger o the nearest kiosk—“may be Buddhists, but are they not also Chinese? You savvie?” I savvied. ) The boy now said diffidently: “In Hang- chow I have got a cousin. I plenty poor man, but my cousin belong rich. Maybe so you like to go for little while to his house? See moon worship there? My cousin will be honored, for I have told him of you.” “Oh, you have? What did you fell him?* Waung's face lighted with some enthusi- asm. “I have told him that you are strange man, Mastah, That when you grow angry your face become red and you saw your teeth together——" “Nonsense, Waung! teeth in my life!” “and 1 told him how once you catchee plenty troub’ for knocking down man who beat little boy—since boy wks the man’s slave.” “What a splendid 3tcommendation! Don't you think your cousin would be more likely to bar the gate against us?” “Oh-a, no,” said Waung seriously. “He will think you, very cur’us; he will want to see you.” The trade seemed a fair one. What I would see might appear equally “cur'us” to me. Such a frank physical description as the boy had probably indulged in sbout me was a Chinese commonplace. I nodded my assent to Waung. mr.Mgumps.a.tuwmmm ing in thelr weird mimnrs, claghing their cyms bals, kotowing to the moon, we halled Swat T've never ground my