Rare Earth
ful the very blossoms she embroidered gave forth perfume; the buds unfolded and at the approach of frost the petals fell to the earth. It is no wonder that the Chinese consider her a goddess and worship her yearly at a colorful festival.
But best of all the customs which Hung Long Tom told about was the Chinese love of gardens. There is no house too small to have a bit of a garden or at least a potted plant. Although when famine grips the land as happens only too frequently there are some who cannot even afford a single blossom. When one is too poor to purchase even a few parched grains of rice, miserable indeed is one's lot. Yet probably a million people die every year in China of starvation. There have been millions of people who in the course of a lifetime never were without the gnawing pangs of hunger. Think of it! Not once in a lifetime to have a square meal. There is no nation in the world that depends more abjectly upon the soil for life. Yet year after year, in many
provinces, the crops fail. China has been built
[165]
