Excerpt from Chinese Superstitions
The least observant traveller in China quickly learns that the Chinese are a very superstitious race. If he travels by boat, he soon discovers that a "lucky day" must be secured before the boatmen can be persuaded to move, no matter how pressing the traveller's business may be. If he secures the services of a carter, a barrowman, or sedan coolie, he is early face to face with some of their superstitions, which may cause delay, misunderstanding, or even revolt, in his camp! The southern provinces of China are said to be much more superstitious than the northern, and the western provinces, especially Si-chuen, more superstitious than either. The Si-chuen proverb, that "Si-chuen is an evil spirit region, where truth lies dead, and falsehood rules the reason," seems to bear this out.
Having chosen "Chinese Superstitions" as a subject for a Paper to be read before the Chentu Association, I naturally turned to various authorities on China to see what others had done in this line, and I was somewhat surprised to find how little had been written on this subject. True, Doolittle, Dyer Ball, and others, had done something, but I found no collection of Chinese superstitions; only isolated notices scattered through the works of various writers on China and the Chinese. It need hardly be said that in no sense have I attempted to exhaust this subject in the present collection.
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