It is sajd that in North and West China, the people eat two meals a day, and in Central China, the region of greatest wealth and fertility, they eat three, but though there are certain times a day when more people than usual seem to be plying chopsticks at the same time, it is generally agreed, that given the means, a Chinese eats whenever he is hungry.
By leaving only certain hours or minutes free to workers, the factories are effecting meal times as well as @everything else. Unless they come on shift at four in the morning, in which case they are given fifteen minutes between six and eight to eat the rice they have brought with them, the workmen breakfast between five-thirty and The factories, especially those controlled by foreigners, allow. a noon hour. This may be a_ half hour from eleven thirty to twelve or a real hour from twelve to one. For the cotton mill workers, as the machinery never stops night or day, there is only an arrangement whereby one of the three girls on each machine eats her rice while the other two watch her spindles.
Supper,. the most substantial meal of the day, is eaten as soon as possible after return from work. This depending on the distance the worker lives from the factory and the change of shifts may be anywhere between six and half past eight.
Where the workers eat is not nearly so definite a matter as when they eat. As a rule since the homes have only the cruelest of kitchens and the entire family is working, the food is brought into the house from food shops outside. The hot water shop provides hot water for tea, the rice shop has great kettles foaming with rice, and the food shape have rows of tiny bowls laid out for selection. Those who breakfast at home may have a. thin rice congee with beans or bean products, and the men who sleep in rooming houses or dormitories may pick up a bowl of hot water and a fried cake or two from the—street venders, as they walk to work, or may have a bowl! filled with rice and topped with half a dozen vegetables. 2 If a real noon hour is given, those who live near by have ample time to return home for a hot meal The men who live at a distance can go out to teahouses or food shops, or squatting on their heels by a travelling' kitchen to wait for their own lunch to cook, watch the workers from various factories pass. Every factory has, a group of vendors outside its gates calling "Ya-so-hues" (pastry), Ung-hsian-tou," (five-flavoured beans), "Z'ongyi-noon"' (spiced potatoes), as the operators stream into the road.
NEW FASHIONS COMING IN, Only the girls and women who have "big feet'? can go home to lunch no matter how near the others may live. The women with bound feet walk too slowly and tire too easily to make it worth while to return for hot rice and for the young "big feet' girls, custom is yet too strong to allow them to venture out on the streets to buy rice from the shops and eat. So they sit about in groups eating their cold rice, exchanging cold vegetables, and gossiping.
Some factories provide places where the operators. may eat, some even provide steam ovens or hot water into which the rice may be dipped and heated, but many furnish neither a dining room nor permission' to eat inside the factory buildings, and so whether it rains, or blows, or shines or snows, the workers must eat outside.
The fact that the workers arrive home at about the same time at night all: hungry and ready for supper is having another effect on the meals.
Formerly it was not the custom for all the members of a family to eat at the same table. The men ate first and the women later. The men might all eat together or one would sit at the table, another tilt back on a bench in the corner, and a third across the street with his steaming rice to eat it under the nose of a neighbor while he exchanged the day's news. The women might eat at the table or on low stools scattered about the room, usually beside a lower stool on which-a small child dexterously wielded man-size chopsticks.
Now at supper time one may pass between rows of houses each of which a family, including men, women, boarders, children, babies, possibly a cat or a bird are gathered about the square table. No one is speaking but the chopsticks are busily playing between the bowls in the centre of the table and the smaller bowls and mouths of the family. Later, the benches are pushed back and the family tired, fed, and a little.relaxed talk a bit before putting up the decor panels and calling ita day.
(Lo be continued.) ited without permission.
Text read from the printed page and cleaned; old type leaves the occasional error.