Asian Miscellany (10)—Children in China

Click here for the introduction to the Round and Square series "Asian Miscellany.

[a] Celebration RF

My last few posts in "Asian Miscellany" have been driven by deadline—and many of them will follow in the coming weeks and months, since I have signed contracts to deliver a whole passel of encyclopedic material to various publishers before a self-imposed deadline of January 30th. As I explained in the introduction, this series of posts allows me to try out a few ideas that I plan eventually to include in various encyclopedias or on-line sites that have asked for my input. They are not the same as the pieces that will eventually be published, but constitute more of a "long draft," meant to work through a few ideas as I work on brief essays that often mandate strict "word counts" of 250, 500, 1,000, or 2,000 words. 

For today's post, I have been asked to write about children and childhood in modern China. You will notice from the picture, above, that I am always looking for the historical threads of modern life. This topic is so fertile, so rich in possibility, that a thousand words can only present the barest glimmer of introduction. Even a brief look at the subject opens whole new worlds of interpretation if you have not been studying Chinese life recently. Just one example is what I see on mountain temples all over China during my research on the "sacred mountains" of Chinese lore. Many temples on Mt. Tai and southern Mt. Heng have sections of temples devoted to "sending forth children" (送子), and I can attest that these locations get heavy traffic all year round. Let's take a look at childhood in modern China. 

Feel free to peruse the other Modern China posts in Asian Miscellany. 

1 One-Child              2 Education             3 Food/Drink          4 House           5 Work          

6 Entertainment       7 Sports/Games       8 Urban/Rural        9 Family Life    10 Children

 Children in Modern China
Children have always been the lifeblood of Chinese society. In traditional times, the focus was relentlessly on having the right proportion of sons and daughters in a family, and the assumption was that income came from the land. It is a serious historical error to think that boys were preferred exclusively over girls in earlier times, but the nuance was often for “strategic” reasons having to do with marriage alliances. Nonetheless, the question of children in today’s China both echoes and changes attitudes found in earlier eras. Only one feature has remained substantially unchanged. Children are the focus of enormous amounts of planning, organizing, and strategizing in China today, just as they five hundred or even two thousand years ago. 

Childhood in History

[b] Family c.1875 RF

Some historians, when trying to get the attention of readers, have proclaimed that “childhood began only a few hundred years ago.” Their point, of course, is that what we mean by “childhood” differs so much from ancient, medieval, and early-modern times that we must be careful about making assumptions based only on our own lives. This is doubly true when we study the concept of “childhood” in societies different from our own. Childhood in Europe, North America, and East Asia all share significant characteristics today. These similarities have a great deal to do with the increasing dominance of the nuclear family in many societies (including China) today, as well as the overwhelming importance of an educational system that requires nine or more years of schooling. Still, these similarities should not blind us to the differences between societies, and childhood is an especially useful place to examine both. 

One constant in Chinese family culture is what some historians and psychologists have called a “low-pressure” early childhood. One can see in traditional novels, as well as in any restaurant in China today, a carefree exploration of their world by children under the age of five or six. This is not merely an outsider’s interpretation. Many parents and grandparents have explained that life is so filled with pressure once school begins that good parents must allow children to play freely before that time.  Whether in television shows or discussions with parents, it is startling that almost exactly the same words are used to express this sentiment. 

Rural Childhood 

[c] Mother-n-children RF

The distinction between “rural” and “urban” childhood is not a perfect one, even for earlier eras. In previous centuries, the key difference lay in whether a child came from a reasonably wealthy family (or was related to one) or not. The “schooling” process began early for children of wealthy households, and did not begin at all (or was seriously shortened) for poorer children. Today, at least nine years of schooling is mandatory (this is very similar to the United States), and twelve is quite common. The urban-rural distinction is not nearly as prevalent as it might have been five centuries ago, when a poor twelve year old was working full days in the fields or family store. Just as happens in North America and Europe today, rural families often expect some labor from children, but the dominance of the educational system prevails. In China, the centrality of the educational system is compounded by the starkness of the one-child policy. Parents and grandparents rest their hopes on one child. Rural or urban, that detail changes the equation a great deal for every one of the generations. 

Urban Childhood  
Although we have seen that education does not follow merely a “rural-urban” split, the specific pressures associated with schooling play out differently in China’s major cities than they do in its rural villages. It is very difficult to separate “childhood” and “family life” from the reality of schooling, and the expectations associated with the educational system affects parents every bit as much as it does children. On the other hand, it is scarcely possible to imagine “childhood” in today’s China—after the age of six—without school. It dominates, even in the most fluid and happy of situations, and always figures in the plans, both large and small, of families. 

[d] Children's Park RF

A few examples might help to explain this. One of the things that Chinese children enjoy sharing with their parents are “riddles”—word games that have a foundation in the educational curriculum as early as the first semester of first grade. Children love telling riddles and making their parents “guess.” They overflow with laughter when their parents struggle to find the answers. Parents and grandparents, on the other hand, also enjoy giving riddles to youngsters, often with the advantage of knowing the language and various situations better than children can. It is a powerful kind of interaction, and an often forgotten constant in childhood worthy of more attention from people who study Chinese society and culture. 

Every bit of this comes from “school,” though. The reason a seven year old in China can respond to a riddle that would make a fifteen year old American squirm (even in English) is because it is embedded in textbooks from almost the first day forward. Parents and children share the challenges and excitement in an exercise that comes straight out of the textbooks that children study, as well as the school books the parents read many years before. Although this is just a small example, it is fair to say that school figures much more prominently in the lives of parents and children in China than it does in the United States. 

***  *** 

Childhood, even some of the most intimate and exciting familial moments, has roots in the texts and skills children develop in school, although some of the intensity is lessened in poorer or far more rural communities (just as happens in rural North America or Europe). Even there, though, children are the hope of the future, and it would be a grave mistake to say that they matter only in terms of labor or (eventual) marriage alliances. Thoughout China today, the educational system dominates the hopes for future generations. Their lives start out in comfortable and carefree ways, but the structure of educational life is never far away.

Feel free to peruse the other Modern China posts in Asian Miscellany. 

1 One-Child              2 Education             3 Food/Drink          4 House           5 Work          

6 Entertainment       7 Sports/Games       8 Urban/Rural        9 Family Life    10 Children

[e] Happy (Solar) New Year! RF

Asian Miscellany (9)—Family Life in Modern China

Click here for the introduction to the Round and Square series "Asian Miscellany.

[a] Family 1967 RF

My last few posts in "Asian Miscellany" have been driven by deadline—and many of them will follow in the coming weeks and months, since I have signed contracts to deliver a whole passel of encyclopedic material to various publishers before a self-imposed deadline of January 30th. As I explained in the introduction, this series of posts allows me to try out a few ideas that I plan eventually to include in various encyclopedias or on-line sites that have asked for my input. They are not the same as the pieces that will eventually be published, but constitute more of a "long draft," meant to work through a few ideas as I work on brief essays that often mandate strict "word counts" of 250, 500, 1,000, or 2,000 words. 

For today's post, I have been asked to write about "family" in modern China. If you have been following this series of essays, you will see that it is another "impossible" topic. My hope is to give readers a sense of some of the issues surrounding family life in China, both modern and historical (the latter being more important to the study of the present than some writers seem to think). It can only be a series of glimpses in these thousand words, but the themes I have chosen are not necessarily the ones you will find in other brief treatments. I focus on the "round" family and, not insignificantly, school pressures as a constant in family life. Take a look.

Feel free to peruse the other Modern China posts in Asian Miscellany. 

1 One-Child              2 Education             3 Food/Drink          4 House           5 Work          

6 Entertainment       7 Sports/Games       8 Urban/Rural        9 Family Life    10 Children

Family Life in Modern China

[b] Two generations RF

In a much earlier era, the picture of a “perfect” family in China was one that was said to be “round.” It contained five generations, three of them thriving, and the other two at either their beginning (in the case of young children) or end (with aging great-grandparents). This “round” family was, in actual practice, almost unknown in Chinese history. Keeping a child of age one or two in good health was challenge enough; maintaining a great-grandparent’s health was even more difficult. The ideal remained, however, and even today every Chinese family has some sense of the “five generation” model hovering in the background.

Rural Life 

In rural China, it is difficult to separate family life from family labor, and this has not changed significantly over the decades. A trip across back roads of China will show the traveler a wide array of images, and most of them are tied—one way or another—to farming and the vocations that are connected to it. A bus ride through several counties in Hunan Province (in southern China), for example, will show the traveler lush rice fields, with people working knee deep in muddy water, and sheltered from the southern sun with everything from traditional triangular hats to NBA log caps. In early morning or late afternoon, adults will more than occasionally be accompanied by children in the fields.  

[c] Mobility RF

Flash-forward to autumn, and the same bus trip will show a late-October harvest, with grain drying on seemingly every inch of pavement or smooth ground. Children and adults smooth the grains and shuffle them for optimal drying, even as work gives way to a few shots at the basketball hoop or games of stickball. Everywhere—and at all times—children will be studying, and this is no less true in rural China than in urban centers. 

Urban Life
The “playing field” for family life is both far smaller in urban centers and, at the very same time, almost limitless. In major urban centers, the housing unit almost never extends from an open front door to fields, hills, and drying grain under basketball hoops. Family life is much more concentrated behind apartment doors, with neighbors one knows less well than in the country.

[d] Urban RF

 It is important not to romanticize one or the other, though. Any walk through a major city, such as Chengdu in China’s “upper southwest” will show family interactions different from those in rural areas—families in lavish restaurants, department stores, and specialty shops. A distinctly urban kind of family moment occurs in large bookstores that can only happen in a family den or community library in a rural setting. There, parents and children animatedly talk about an array of books that cannot be found in other locations. Parks are another center of life for the three generations most commonly together, where children, parents, and grandparents (or some combination of them) spend their leisure time.

Urban family life centers on school, as well. Because urban centers hold the vast majority of corporations and high-paying positions in the country, it should not be surprising that the focus on education and success is very great in large cities. China’s wealthiest cities are known for their enviable success in international testing competitions (Shanghai’s schools did particularly well recently), and the pace in the best schools is a challenge for both students and the parents who both support and rest their expectations on them.

Pressure and Opportunity 

[e] Reading RF

Family life with children means family life with school. It is the overwhelming reality in China, and the pressure exceeds what most Americans experience. Although some of the educational pressures are greater in the larger cities of China, in all areas there are constant expectations from teachers and school administrators that parents make sure their children are prepared. The stereotype is that these things do not happen readily in less-educated rural areas, yet the one constant that can be heard in conversations with parents all over China is the pressure parents feel to have their children do well in school. A little bit of probing takes this a step deeper. To be sure, parents want their children to be successful. But just as parents in previous decades or centuries have felt (all over the world), they are often most concerned that their children at least do well enough to be regarded in the wide but unspectacular range of “good” students. 

Children might be quite surprised to hear this latter statement, since they often feel the pressure in a very different way. Many complain that it is “too much,” and that their grandparents and parents show far less affectionate than stern (parents often admit as much, and say that it is a sad necessity). Family life has changing pressures, to be sure (buying a house, getting married, having children—often with additional pressure from parents—educating children, and then helping those children, in turn, to start the process). Although “pressure” may seem like a strange theme in a discussion of family life, a little thought will make it clear that it is a very real factor in relations between children, parents, and grandparents. 

***  *** 

The reader of this brief essay will have seen many parallels with life in the United States or Europe. This is to be expected, since the “structural constants” of housing, schooling, and passing the torch to subsequent generations are to be found in every society across the globe. The cultural particularities of Chinese family life are worthy of careful consideration, though. The fact that schooling in China is geared toward success in examinations (not merely having “good grades”) separates it from some of the situations an American student might experience. The expectations and hopes of six adults—parents and grandparents—focused on just one (“only”) child is another fairly distinctive (and recent) difference. Family life in all societies is fascinating for its global continuities and specific contrasts, and China provides a fascinating picture of the generational dynamic.

Feel free to peruse the other Modern China posts in Asian Miscellany. 

1 One-Child              2 Education             3 Food/Drink          4 House           5 Work          

6 Entertainment       7 Sports/Games       8 Urban/Rural        9 Family Life    10 Children 

[f] Many moons ago RF

Asian Miscellany (8)—Urban and Rural China

Click here for the introduction to the Round and Square series "Asian Miscellany.

[a] Rurotopia RF

My last few posts in "Asian Miscellany" have been driven by deadline—and many of them will follow in the coming weeks and months, since I have signed contracts to deliver a whole passel of encyclopedic material to various publishers before a self-imposed deadline of December 20th. As I explained in the introduction, this series of posts allows me to try out a few ideas that I plan eventually to include in various encyclopedias or on-line sites that have asked for my input. They are not the same as the pieces that will eventually be published, but constitute more of a "long draft," meant to work through a few ideas as I work on brief essays that often mandate strict "word counts" of 250, 500, 1,000, or 2,000 words. 

For today's post, I have been asked to write about the relationship between urban and rural China. The distinction between the two has been dramatic from even the earliest periods of China's imperial era (221 BCE-CE 1911). Today, China's development is unfolding at dramatically different paces, with the largest gaps occurring between rural and urban areas. There is nothing new about urbanization in China, and there is everything "old" about rural life. Together, they create one of the most important ways of looking at China today and through its history.

Feel free to peruse the other Modern China posts in Asian Miscellany. 

1 One-Child              2 Education             3 Food/Drink          4 House           5 Work          

6 Entertainment       7 Sports/Games       8 Urban/Rural        9 Family Life    10 Children

 

Urban and Rural China

[b] Travelin' RF

Stark contrasts exist between “urban” and “rural” life in China today. The greatest differences can be seen in education, and this is a point that is not lost on China’s population. The 2008 earthquake in Sichuan, and the damage it caused to rural schools, was only the most dramatic recent indication that far more attention is paid to every aspect of urban schooling than can be found in any of China’s remote locales. The contrast goes much further, though. Although many Chinese cities—even quite modest ones—have populations that rival the greatest cities in Europe or North America, the “power” configuration can be found—economically, politically, and even “artistically”—in a handful of cities across China, including Beijing, Shanghai, Hong Kong, and Chengdu. This contrast between urban and rural life is not at all new, and has had echoes back at least to the Song Dynasty (960-1279). The Chinese government today sees the relationship as particularly important for social order, and that is one of the reasons why it remains in almost every “news cycle” in China, even with a press careful not to create controversy.

Cities and Countryside in Chinese History

[c] Fort RF

Chinese cities are hardly "new." Even from the earliest written records, we can see evidence of administrative centers with tens to hundreds of thousands of citizens. Modern-day Xi'an (ancient Chang’an) is just one such city with a truly long-lasting heritage of over two thousand years. China’s largest cities are older than all but a few others in world history. These administrative centers got their first competition from rapidly rising market centers all over the territory, and some of these grew quickly, with a bustling commerce and population growth that brought them several million residents and outsized influence both within and beyond China.

All the while, the countryside continued to matter a great deal, and for far more important reasons than the resources shipped to the cities. Family wealth almost always had to be grounded in large estates in the countryside, because it was rarely possible to sustain economic influence over the generations without some kind of landed wealth to provide a foundation for other economic activity. Even today, the ties of wealthy urban families to the countryside remain significant.


Although just as many stereotypes and even prejudices surround the “country bumpkin” in urban Chinese lore (this has been another constant for at least a thousand years), corporations draw upon the wealth and labor of the countryside to make their own place in China’s growing economy. For at least thirty years, labor has been flowing to the cities from the countryside, and often in far more organized kinship network patterns than outsiders have realized.

Rural China Today

[d] Frosty-rural RF

Deng Xiaoping is known for his statement in the early 1980s, "To grow rich is glorious." The subsidization of private farming the decade that followed did, indeed, allow a significant cross-section of rural China to do very well. Houses, small-scale industry (often importing to North America and Europe), and other changes have altered the rural landscape in China in the last three decades.

The Chinese landscape is truly vast, and most of it is rural. Much of it is so distant from even moderately sized cities as to call into serious question the image much of the world has of China after seeing Beijing during the 2008 Olympics. Rural news events find their way into international press coverage at times, but—short of disasters and the occasional recognition of the farm economy—the vast majority of Chinese territory (almost all of it rural) is ignored by both the international and Chinese press.

Despite the close ties between city and countryside, it should be noted that urban dwellers in China often have a much harsher judgment of rural compatriots than is even found in the West, where such comparisons are hardly unknown. A young Chinese anthropologist from Beijing tells the story of his decision to study a poor, rural village in Shaanxi province. Although he describes a number of challenges that lay before him as an urban dweller in a rural area of his home country, nothing compares to the disdain heaped upon him by his fellow students in Beijing, who might have understood going across an ocean to study a different society, but could not fathom stooping to study the “ignorance” of rural China. This harsh, urban view—which is at least as old as China’s largest cities—needs to be understood as part of the complex ties between the vastness of rural China and the splendored sophistication of urban China.


Urban China Today

[e] Skyline RF

The anthropologist's story works the other way, too. Where did critics think they came from? Clearly, only a generation or two (or less) is sufficient to give a person an identity as an urban dweller, and this can be seen both in China and the West. One need only read any nineteenth century French novel to see almost precisely the same dynamic at work. That urban dwellers do not usually recognize the close ties they have on many levels, both in terms of family and economy, should not surprise readers. It is one of the widest gulfs in social and economic life today all over the world.

There can be no doubt that urban China today—particularly from Beijing to Tianjin and then down the eastern seaboard—has outsized power when it comes to governmental, economic, and even “cultural” power. A few cities in the interior play a large role in Chinese life, but there is an “eastern” focus that any American might recognize in her own country. Beijing and Shanghai dominate all other cities, with Hong Kong (“newly-arrived” in 1997) not far behind. Shenzhen, known exclusively for its entrepreneurial (and government protected) status, is an outlier that has continued to show influence. The more than thirty provincial capitals, always important for their governmental role, have also grown to prominence as economic centers in the last thirty years.

***  ***

It is often noted that the food is in the countryside, while the wealth, power, and status is in the cities. This is not mistaken, but it is only part of the equation. Rural China is both reviled and relied upon, the object of urban jokes and citywide need for resources. Urban centers are often seen as a mecca for rural laborers looking for work, even though travelers often give up security in terms of housing, schooling, medical care, and other matters. The most important thing to understand is that these worlds are not distinct, and certainly far from being either/or propositions, even for the hardiest farmer or most effete urbanite. They need each other, and this theme dominates all others in the understanding of modern China.

Feel free to peruse the other Modern China posts in Asian Miscellany. 

1 One-Child              2 Education             3 Food/Drink          4 House           5 Work          

6 Entertainment       7 Sports/Games       8 Urban/Rural        9 Family Life    10 Children

[f] Palatial RF

 

Seinfeld Ethnography (34)—Mustachioed

Click here for an introduction to the Round and Square series Argonauts of the Seinfeldian Specific.

Click below for all "Seinfeld Ethnography" posts: 

George Eats Trash     No Soup for You     Elaine Exclaims    The Puffy Shirt    Poppie's Pizza     Mr. Bookman

Marine Biologist         The Doorman          Opposite George   Newman's Mail   The Bootleg         Marriage
Just Dessert               Sleep Desk             Late Coffee            High Stakes        Motor Oil              Downtown 
Code Cracking           Nonfat Yogurt          Bad Boy                 It's Not You         I Can't Be...          Exploding Wallet
Elaine Flies Coach    The Close Talker     The Alliance           Broccoli               Coated Culture    Dinner Party
George's Friend        Jerry's Haircut          Face Paint             Mustachioed       Smoking              East River
Pool Man                   Dunkin' Joe              Life Lessons          Reckoning          Dog Medicine      Shower Heads
Looking Busy            George Tips             Kramer's Job          Empty Tank
Click here for the reference to the "Argonauts" title, below.
Argonauts of the Seinfeldian Specific 
Picking right up from our last Seinfeld Ethnography post, we will spend a little time today exploring the cosmetic and social implications of facial hair. In their comfortable booth at Monk's restaurant, George and Jerry discuss northern European ethnicity while sporting distinctive above-the-upper-lip hair styles. George wonders about the nature of identity and employment (wondering aloud about his appearance). Jerry would rather have gone on a real vacation than this "vacation from ourselves" that lands them in the corner diner, reading newspapers, and scratching their noses. Take a look.

Mustachioed 0:50

"Then who are the Dutch?" asks George with some urgency. How much does he want to know about a certain East India Company in an increasingly globalized world in the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries? Battles for supremacy on "Formosa"? Smuggling? Bankruptcy ending the company's influence?

[b] The Works RF

Not much at all, as it turns out. George wants a vacation from himself, and he takes Jerry along for his (Dutch) company. It turns out that they both will need a little more—or less—hair if they want to escape from themselves. Mutton chops? Buzz cuts? Maybe a job?

***  ***

My question for today is about facial hair and identity. Beards are one thing—storied appendages framed by culture and history. Whole gendered groupings of adults (often called "males") in many periods of human history have been distinguished by beards. Tightly groomed or flowing in hirsute profusion, the beard is as much a cultural marker as a sign (probably well understood by our Paleolithic ancestors) that the instruments of close grooming were unavailable.

The mustache is different. It is hard for me to imagine even the most debonair mastodon hunter outlined by a finely honed pencil mustache as he sharpens his spear over the morning fire. By the Neolithic, it was possible to scrape facial hair (and a few gobs of skin) from a hardy face, but the technology was little match for the concomitant, embodied pain.

It doesn't take many hours spent watching, say, NFL football broadcasts to see that obsession with facial hair technology is perhaps second only to beer in financial focus among American men. Scratching, bleeding, scraping, and general dermatological misery (along with the occasional cool, bracing recovery) is the order of our time. With beards—whether today or while enjoying a roasted leg of mammoth—the equation is simple: keep 'em trimmed...if you can.

The mustache is different; it is all about trimming. Indeed, there is no mustache without powerful distinctions between a naked face and a small copse of stubble. Mix technology, artistry, daring, and a little testosterone—voici, we have a mustachioed face. It is that simple...and complex.

We will complete today's cultural and historical lesson with a look at hair in three prominent locations in time and space. Because I am not near my personal library this week, I will have to make a departure from the usual philosophical and anthropological texts that conclude our weekly Seinfeld Ethnography posts. Don't worry, though. In a week or so, I plan to examine the role of facial hair in the history of anthropology. You have no idea how interesting this might be. Look for that in early January.

[c] Über RF

In the meantime, I have chosen three diverse texts, all of which deal in one way or another with facial hair. Interestingly enough, none of them deals with mustaches. I find this fascinating. Beards have power (and so does hair, as Samson, Delilah, and the Monkey King could attest); mustaches are, well, something else. We'll return to them in future Round and Square posts. 

Our first text gives a brief picture of the Norse über God Thor and his fiery beard. The second is a snippet from the classic Chinese narrative Journey to the West, which details the travels of a strange band of travelers in seventh century China who journey through untold perils to find the sacred (Buddhist) scriptures in the shadowy and magical lands of "China's" westland.  Hair is magical here. 

Finally, we conclude with the twelfth sonnet from Shakespeare's admirable collection of structured lyrics. I have always enjoyed memorizing, thinking about, and discussing The Sonnets, but today's search through them might have been the strangest I have ever undertaken. If you have never read through great verse in pursuit of references to facial hair, well, your literary studies are unfinished.

Myths of the Norsemen
Helene Guerber (1909)

[d] Thornder RF

As he was god of thunder, Thor alone was never allowed to pass over the wonderful bridge Bifröst, lest he should set it aflame by the heat of his presence; and when he wished to join his fellow gods by the Urdar fountain, under the shade of the sacred tree Yggdrasil, he was forced to make his way thither on foot, wading through the rivers Kormt and Ormt, and the two streams Kerlaug, to the trysting place.

Thor, who was honored as the highest god in Norway, came second in the trilogy of all the other countries, and was called "old Thor," because he is supposed by some mythologists to have belonged to an older dynasty of gods, and not on account of his actual age, for he was represented and described as a man in his prime, tall and well formed, with muscular limbs and bristling red hair and beard, from which, in moments of anger, the sparks flew in showers.
                    First, Thor with bent brow,
                    In red beard muttering low,
                    Darting fierce lightnings from eyeballs that glow,
                    Comes, while each chariot wheel 
                    Echoes in thunder peal,
                    As his dread hammer shock
                    Makes Earth and Heaven rock,
                    Clouds rifting above, while Earth quakes below.
                                                                    —Valhalla, J.C. Jones[1]

Journey to the West
Wu Cheng'en (Sixteenth Century)
Arthur Waley (Translated 1943) 

[e] Monkeyjourney RF

The combat began at dawn and lasted till the sun sank behind the western hills. The One Horned Ogre and all the kings of the seventy-two caves were captured and carried away. Only the four generals and the monkeys escaped and hid in the far recesses of the cave. But Monkey all alone, cudgel in hand, held back the kings of the Four Quarters, Vaisravana and Natha, warring with them half way up the sky. At last, seeing that dusk was at hand, he plucked a handful of his hairs, tossed them out, crying 'Change!' Whereupon they changed into thousands of monkeys each armed with a metal-plated cudgel. They drove back Vaisravana, Natha, and the four kings. Then Monkey, at last victorious, withdrew the hairs and returned to his cave. At the Iron Bridge, he was met by the four generals and all the host of monkeys. On seeing him they wailed three times, and laughed, hee-hee, ho-ho, three times. 'What made you wail three times and laugh three times when you saw me?' asked Monkey. 'We wailed,' they said, 'because the One Horned Ogre and the seventy-two kings were defeated and captured, and because we had to fly for our lives. We laughed with joy because you have come back victorious and unharmed.'[2]

The Sonnets—12

[f] Shakestache RF

William Shakespeare (1609)
When I do count the clock that tells the time,
And see the brave day sunk in hideous night,
When I behold the violet past prime,
And sable curls all silvered o'er with white;
When lofty trees I see barren of leaves,
Which erst from head did canopy the herd,
And summer's green all girded up in sheaves
Borne on the bier with white and bristly beard:
Then of thy beauty do I question make
That thou among the wastes of time must go,
Since sweets and beauties do themselves forsake 
And die as fast they they see others grow,
     And nothing 'gainst Time's scythe can make defence
     Save breed to brave him, when he takes thee hence.[3] 

Notes
[1] Helene A. Guerber, Myths of the Norsemen (New York: Barnes & Noble Classics, 2006), 67-68.
[2] Arthur Waley, translator, Monkey (New York: Grove Press, 1970), 61.
[3] Helen Vendler, The Art of Shakespeare's Sonnets (Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 1997), 96. 

Bibliography
Guerber, Helene A. Myths of the Norsemen. New York: Barnes & Noble Classics, 2006.
Vendler, Helen. The Art of Shakespeare's Sonnets. Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 1997.
Waley, Arthur, translator. Monkey. New York: Grove Press, 1970. 

NEXT
Wednesday, January 4th
Smoking Kramer
Kramer makes his apartment into a smoking lounge. The rest is history (and culture)...and litigation.