"Painting the eyebrow" is an expression in China for showing affection.
Chinese-Hawaiians should understand that in China it is considered poor taste to show affection other than to a parent.
Husbands and wives are never supposed to show affection fro each other.
"Painting the eyebrow" is an expression derived from a classical story so famous that it is illustrated with paintings by great artists.
PROPHECY
Many years ago a rascal boy was playing in front of his house when a fortune teller cam along the street, stopped, looked at the boy and then at the girl who was sitting in a rickshaw. He said to the boy,
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| A pulled rickshaw is a two-wheeled passenger cart pulled by a human runner. |
The boy looked at the girls who was dumpy and homely and said "No I won't."
He picked up a bit of tile and threw it at the girl hitting her face so that the tile cut through her eyebrow.
The boy's parents whipped the boy and sent him away to school.
Years later the boy became a great scholar ad friend of the Emperor.
MARRIAGE ARRANGED
His family then arranged a marriage for him.
True to Chinese style, the scholar did
not see his bride until after the wedding.
When he removed her veil, he saw she was beautiful. He loved her at once.
The next morning he notice a scar on her eyebrow and asked about it. The bride told of the time the fortune teller had prophesied her marriage to the boy next door and of how the boy had hit her with a tile.
"So," the husband said, "the fortune teller was right, I did marry you."
PAINTS SCAR
The husband then took a brush and ink ad painted over the scar. This he made a habit of doing each morning.
Someone peeked ad the news was carried to the Emperor who laughingly asked the husband about the daily "painting of the eyebrow."
The husband cleverly turned the Emperor's question by asking, " Are the intimacies of a bedchamber limited to painting the eyebrow?"
NEXT: OMENS
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