[Illustration: "WALKING BOATS" AT THE FIRST-FULL-MOON FESTIVAL (see p. 184).]
So far as Weihaiwei is concerned the Feast of Lanterns may be regarded as pre-eminently the holiday season for children. During several days before and after the fifteenth of the first month bands of young village boys dress up in strange garments and go about by day and night acting queer little plays, partly in dumb-show and partly in speech, dance and song. Some of them wear the terrifying masks of wild beasts, such as lions, a few assume the white beards of old men, and many are attired in girls' clothing. The children perform their parts with great vivacity, and go through their masquerades, dances and chorus-singing in a manner that would do credit to the juvenile performers at a provincial English pantomime. They are, indeed, taught their parts and trained by their elders for some weeks before the festival. Every group of villages keeps a stock of masks, false beards, clothes and other "properties," and there are always adults who take pleasure in teaching the little ones the songs and dances which they themselves learned as children in bygone days. In daytime the dressed-up children take a prominent part in processions to the local temples. On such occasions many of them are perched on high stilts, which they manage with great skill. At night they carry large lighted Chinese lanterns and march amid music and song through the streets of their native village, or from one village to another, stopping occasionally in front of a prominent villager's house to act their little play or perform a lantern-dance.[136]
No European who has seen a lantern-dance in a Shantung village can fail to be delighted. The graceful movements of the children, their young voices ringing clear in the frosty air, the astonishing dexterity with which they manipulate the swinging lanterns, the weird effect of rapidly-interchanging light and shadow as the gleaming paper moons thread the bewildering mazes of a complicated country-dance,--all these things combine to please the eye and charm the ear. Not the least interesting part of the proceedings is the obvious pleasure taken by the crowds of adult spectators in the performances of their little ones: for the Chinese are devoted to children.