" Lifting weights was (as now) a favourite exercise;
in 307 a Ts'in prince died from the effects of a strain produced
in trying to lift a heavy metal tripod. In Ts'i games at ball,
including a kind of football, were played. As a rule, however, it
is to be feared that the wealthy Chinese classes in ancient (as in
modern) times found their chief recreation in feasting, literary
bouts, and female society. Curiously enough, nothing is said of
gambling. Women are depicted at their looms, or engaged upon the
silk industry; but it is singular how very little is said of home
life, of how the houses were constructed, of how the hours of
leisure were passed. In modern China the bulk of the male rural
population rises with or before the dawn, and is engaged upon
field or garden work until the shades of evening fall in; there is
no artificial light adequate for purposes of needlework or private
study; even the consolations of tobacco and tea--not to say opium,
and now newspapers--were unknown in Confucian days. It is
presumed, therefore, that life was even more humdrum than it is
now, except that women at least had feet to walk upon.
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