100 sons and children at play: Chinese Traditional Symbols and Motifs

The “Children at play” or “Children playing” motif  is a metaphor which alludes to continuing the family line, marital blessings and lots of kids.

It also implies fun, happiness, carefree and innocence and is seen on porcelain, folk arts, in paintings and embroideries  quite a lot, though not exclusively. “Children at play” never depicts  girls – this is an exclusively male only club. There are many many many variations on this auspicious theme from region to region and period to period.

A close-up of a round red lacquered box from Shanxi, shows the “children at play with balls” motif  depicted on it’s side.

Most depictions are of children’s games, including:

• “Playing dolls” 
• Children playing with balls
• Children playing with ducks or with deer
• Children riding a bamboo horse 
• Boating, fishing, firecrackers

The motif goes back to the tang dynasty and this  motif has changed over time through subtle changes in the imagery, reflecting the social conditions and stability of each of the various periods.  During periods of declining prosperity bodies, clothing and particularly heads changed to reflect the times. Children depicted in prosperous times are more plump and carefree; scenes are livelier. In times of social unrest and/or less prosperity the imagery become more abstract and even distorted to some degree. With research and closer scrutiny it can  be a useful tool in dating.

“100 children” known in Chinese as “100 suns & 1000 grandsons”  is another similar but a different motif and is in particular is often associated with weddings. This one peaked in popularity during the Ming and Qing Dynasties and the number of children in each scene increased significantly.  Supposedly this motif refers to Zhou Wen Wang, the founder of the  Zhou Dynasty who had 99 sons and adopted 1 more for an even 100!

Children riding a bamboo horse

A Ming dynasty compound cabinet sometimes called a “wedding cabinet” with the children at play motif 100 suns & 1000 grandsons.

Children at play (porcelain)

Children at play fishing as depicted on this cinnabar lacquer snuff bottle.

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What is it? A Chinese wooden barbers stool from days past

I just came across this fascinating lecture by John Lawson Stoddard who was an American writer and lecturer who traveled the world in the mid to late 1800’s and gained popularity through his travel writings. In series 13 of his lectures upon visiting Canton, he describes the role of a Chinese barber and includes a picture in which can be seen a  similar wooden barbers stool.

Occasionally we discovered in these streets an itinerant barber. These Chinese Figaros carry their outfits with them. First in importance comes a bamboo pole, which is the immemorial badge of their profession. To this is usually attached one solitary towel, – free to every customer. From one extremity of this pole hangs a small brass basin, together with a charcoal stove for heating water; the other end is balanced by a wooden cabinet, which serves the patient as a seat during the operation, and contains razors, lancets, tweezers, files, and other surgical instruments.

It matters not where one of these tonsorial artists practises his surgery.

A temple court, a flight of steps, a street, or a back-yard, are quite the same to him. He takes his queue where he can find it. One of his commonest duties is to braid that customary appendage to a Chinaman’s head, without which he would be despised. It is comical to estimate the thousands of miles of Chinese queues which even one barber twists in the course of his career – enough, if tied together, end to end, to form a cable between Europe and America. Yet this singular style of hair-dressing (now so universal) was introduced into China only two hundred and fifty years ago. Before that time the Chinese wore full heads of hair, and the present fashion of shaved crowns and twisted queues is of Tartar origin, and was imposed by a conquering dynasty as a badge of servitude.

The wearing of a mustache in China is an indication that he whose face it adorns is a grandfather. In fact, until he is forty-five years old, a Chinaman usually shaves his face completely; but this fact does not prove that after that time he can dispense with the services of a barber. For the tonsorial art in China is exceedingly varied; and Chinese barbers not only braid the queue; they also shave the eyebrows, clean the ears, pull teeth, and massage. Moreover, they scrape the inside of their victim’s eyelids – a custom which is believed by foreigners to be the cause of much of the ophthalmia in China.

Note that the stool pictured above is a reproduction from ebay, as I was too lazy to dig out one of our photos of a real ones.

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