Chief’s Cultural Jeerings

A phone-call woke me up in the early morning on the weekend.

It was my niece Yanyan from Armenia. She and her husband are expecting their baby and would like to ask me for some advice about the baby’s name. Therefore, a conversation about Chinese names started.

Y: Hello, uncle, I’m expecting a baby soon, and it is a boy! We’ve already get him an English name, but haven’t decided on the Chinese one, because we hope that it is a name sounds clear and has good meanings, and what’s the best, will convey our expectation for the baby. So we turn to you.

U: Ha! Now Chinese names are fashionable, for example, Zhang Paul, Li George, Wang Marie, Chen Lisa… while I’m old-fashioned and I’m afraid my advice won’t help.

Y: No, it’s not true. Those “Chinese” names are only for people who want to be more like Westerners. As a matter of fact, Westerners are very interested in Chinese names, because those Westerners who understand a little Chinese culture know that there is so much wisdom in Chinese names. They often ask “what does your name mean?” and it is a cultural communication by explaining your Chinese name to them.

U: Very good, then. May I give you some suggestions?

Y: Of course! That’s very nice of you.

U: Let’s start with the sound of a Chinese name. The language of Chinese has a special rhyme. The knowledge of rhyme has been used in not only poetry, essays and even architecture, but also in people’s daily life. Making a name sounds clear is a common example. If you want the name to be clear, pay attention to tonal pattern.

Y: As the tonal pattern in Chinese poetry?

U: Oh, you remember that! Yes, it’s tonal pattern, or tones. In Chinese there are one flat tone and three oblique tones. If the character sounds short and with the fourth tone, it is an oblique tone.

Y: Wow, it’s phonology! Our ancestors are marvelous! They have such a culture of names in their times already! I suppose there are other things to pay attention too.

U: Yes indeed. There are other things: the Chinese philosophy of the harmony of Man and Nature…

Y: Well uncle, this is beyond my knowledge. Why does this Chinese philosophy connect to Chinese names?

U: They are closely connected actually. The harmony of Man and Nature means that Heaven, Earth and Man have their own ways of existence but meanwhile they are connected.

Y: If so, how is it related to Chinese names?

U: You must know some Chinese names have meanings of born in spring or autumn, or born on a rainy day or a stormy day?

Y: Yeah! Now I understand. This is how the harmony works on Chinese names.

U: Right. The philosophy of the harmony of Man and Nature is all the same among all the 56 nations. The difference is only in ethnical customs, as the date and place of the birth, the weather, the social environment, and taboos.

Y: That makes sense. But nowadays it seems we do not stick to Chinese traditional culture so much.

U: Yes, I agree with you. However, Chinese traditional culture is full of treasures and what I said is only small pieces of them. Hoping that the child will be good-looking, smart, lucky, healthy is shared among parents of all the nations. This is a treasure of Chinese traditional culture, too.

Y: Now the treasures are shining because of you. Well is there anything we should avoid?

U: First, the characters should not be unlucky or vulgar, or cause misunderstanding with some people, events, or words; second, avoid characters hardly-used, hard to read or write, which will cause inconvenience when the child starts his or her social life.

Y: Thank you very much for your advice! It’s very helpful, really.

U: Ha-ha, you’re welcome.

After the summer arrived, I noticed that my colleagues have been showing up for work earlier than before, maybe just to skip the heat before the sun wakes up and maybe a seat in the emptier morning transit, so they can casually wonder into their little cube, and still have time for their freshly brewed tea and a breakfast snack.

Today, this phoneme suddenly became a regular, they are all waiting for the “runner of the day” to fetch their breakfasts.
Not long after, in the cheering of the ladies of “Nice! Pancakes (大饼) and fried dough sticks (油条)!” Along came the irresistible smell of pancakes and sticks in the office air, the smiling faces sure have lit up the view of the room.

“Guys!” said a co-worker with a tone you can usually hear in the commercials “you realize those snacks have been a Chinese tradition for over 2000 years?”
“You got to be kidding, since when did some simple snacks like these suddenly became a national treasure?” another guy laughed.

“Well, FYI”, said another guy while looking at the second one “the pancake does have a history for over 2000 years. In the written history, in the West Han Dynasty, ambassador Ban Chao came back from the west and brought with him this kind of pancake, by then they called it ‘alien cake’, and that was the prototype of the pancake we have today. In the book “Qi Min Yao Shu” of North Wei Dynasty, they have the receipt of the cake written down. And by Tang Dynasty, the pancake has already become a popular snack around, there were even poems written in praise of it, and by the description in the poem, we can tell they are pretty much the same as today’s. After Song Dynasty, it appeared even more in the records, so, the tradition is not a myth……”

“Right so, then what about the fried dough sticks? They came together with the pancakes?” asked a forth guy.

“Not really. The sticks have an even more interesting story. In the South Song Dynasty, there was this traitor called Qin Hui, and this guy who sold breakfasts in Hangzhou made a thing with flour in the shape of two people strapped together and fried them in hot oil, and it was called ‘fried Hui’. Till now, they still call the stick by this name in some place in Zhe Jiang province. Later, because it was time consuming making the flour people shaped, so they came up with the idea of making it simpler. You make an evenly spared flour batch and cut them into small pieces, take two of them and twist them together, one for Qin and the other one for his wife and throw them into the oil. And soon, the name was changed into fried stick”.

The forth guy asked more “Pancake, fried stick, rice ball and bean juice are called the four ‘Gods’ of breakfast. By your story, the must be something for the other two as well?”

“Indeed. As the Chinese say, those four represents ‘tasty; crunchy; soft and pure’, they are cheap and fast, so they became the four most popular essentials of breakfast. And that is how they are called the four ‘Gods’ of breakfast.” The first guy added, “The bean juice had a similar history like the pancake. It is said that it was invented by Lord of Huainan in West Han Dynasty. His mother was ill; he served his mother with bean juice every day. After she got better, the juice was well accepted by the people; as for the rice balls, you mixed Glutinous rice and Japonica by a certain share, after soaking, you steam them and then you get the rice balls. But no one knows exactly when it dates back to. But given the material used, it is believed they are much earlier than the other three.”

“Huh? If they are such long stories, they must have some interesting stories behind them too, maybe?” asked a girl who just finished her breakfast.

“I have one right here!” rushed the second guy. “It was early in the Qing Dynasty. A rich guy’s son fell asleep in his own back garden. And after he woke up, his body was all itchy, it was like needles pitching him all over, it hurt so bad that he could even get dressed. They took him to a doctor, and doctor prescript was this: glutinous rice 3 carts, japonica 1 cart, make as much rice balls as you can, and give them out in the town market. And on the night of the third day, roll two rice balls over the body, and then you will be cured. And so the rich guy did. And it worked! The story travelled and people came to ask the doctor what it was all about. The doc laughed, actually, the son was not sick at all, there was only some glitch on his body, so you can just roll them off with some rice balls. As for the distribution part, I was only trying to feed the poor with his money.”

“ That was funny” laughed most of the guys.

“I got one too” the forth guy added “it came from a small town. There was this old man, and he went to a tea house for breakfast every morning. One day, he went as usual, with him he had two pancakes covered with sesame, he ordered a pot of tea and started to enjoy his pancakes. Later, after he finished with his pancakes, he found that he dropped a lot of sesame in the small gaps of the table. He couldn’t get them out with his hands. Then he got this idea, suddenly he punched the table right on the top, so the sesames all came out of the gaps. And he could eat them all, but he did scare the “Tea doc” and all the customers around.”

And every one burst into laughter as he finished the story.

The runner girl of the day said, “I never thought there are so many stories behind our simple breakfast snacks. But when it comes to the snacks, I could always remember when I was a little girl and lived in the small alley. There was this little stand that sold those snacks just at the head of the alley, but I never had to run that far to get them. Because there was this little girl, who always dressed in a top with little flowers and a bamboo basket in her hands, she was making her rounds in the neighborhood each and every morning. Just wait for her to pass by and you can buy those pancakes and sticks from her. She was a bit older than me, and her voice was just that clear and lovely with the “Pancakes! Fried sticks!” So I always called her the “Pancake sister”. Nowadays, even the KFC and other fast food chains are selling those snacks and sell them in nice packs, I still miss her basket the most….”

“Right, no wonder you volunteered for the first ‘runner of the day’. Maybe deep down inside, you ARE the ‘pancake sister’ yourself”.

In that crowded office, all we could smell was the lovely pancakes and cooking oil; and with the smell, we chewed more than just pancakes and fried sticks, but our culture and our heritage…

On an afternoon in early summer, the guest who previously chatted with me about “natural landscape” made a second visit to my house. As the saying goes, “Strangers at the first meeting, friends at the second.” Strangers no more, the guest frankly admitted he had understood what “humanistic landscape” was.

“Great!” I served a cup of “Tieguanyin” tea to him and teased, “Where did you arm yourself?”

“In www.cultural-china.com,” the guest received his tea and answered.

“Ah ha…” I was surprised, “It is an English website targeting at foreign browsers. Is your English good enough to view the website?”

Seeing my surprised expression, the guest could not help laughing, “A little bit. I used to teach English for a couple of years, and now can still manage to understand.”

“Great! Great!” I nodded with approval, and asked, “How’s that website?”

Gulped down the cup of “Tieguanyin” tea, the guest unbridled his tongue, “Nowadays there are quite a lot of websites specialized in scenery introduction, but most of them are scenic spot introduction, travel guide, or lengthy articles. Yet www.cultural-china.com is another case. It aims at foreign browsers, so it specially emphasizes the introduction of the cultural background that lies behind the landscape. In particular, the “humanistic landscape” part not only enables foreign browsers to know about the scenic spot, but also get some related culture information. I’ve frequented the website recently, and learnt quite a lot.”

“In that case, it is your turn to ‘lecture’.” I added some tea to his cup and, to let him take his ease, further explained, “It isn’t academic study, just some easy chitchat.”

“Yes, right!” He put down his tea cup, sat up straight, and started to talk, “Just like ‘humanity’ denotes ‘man-made’, ‘humanistic landscape’ is actually ‘man-made landscape’. The most persuasive example is the architectural landscape. Whether it is the historically handed-down palace, tomb, temple and tower, or the newly-built Bird’s Nest, Water Cube and Expo park; whether it demonstrates solemnity, dignity, prestige and supremacy, or symbolizes divinity, brilliance, vastness and profoundness, the humanistic landscape is invariably the landscape that is designed and built under certain cultural conception and thus endowed with some culture value! Doesn’t the name ‘humanistic landscape’ seem to suggest the meaning of ‘man-made landscape’?”

“Well,” I continued his topic and explained, “The two characters “ren wen” (literally, human culture) are not exotic but home-made. They first appeared in I Ching (the Book of Changes), and scholars in the Song Dynasty interpreted them as ‘the way of human’. In other words, they refer to the culture made by human beings. Thus ‘humanistic landscape’ can be viewed as ‘man-made landscape of some culture value.’”

“Then, is there any difference between ‘cultural landscape’ and ‘humanistic landscape’?” asked the guest.

“You may say they are almost the same.” I continued to explain, “Quite a lot of people think ‘cultural landscape’ equals to ‘humanistic landscape’, but I don’t think so. You see, doesn’t ‘cultural landscape’ refer to ‘landscape of some cultural value’? If it does, shouldn’t it include ‘natural landscape’ of some cultural value? So I think ‘cultural landscape’ is vague in concept, and ‘humanistic landscape’ clearer. Furthermore, ‘humanistic landscape’ isn’t born with ‘cultural value’.”

“Quite right,” replied the guest, “We may perceive this from the introduced ‘humanistic landscape’ in www.cultural-china.com. For instance, the classical gardens of Suzhou can be regarded as the masterwork of human beings. There was a garden designer called Ji Cheng in the Ming Dynasty. His work, Garden Design (Yuan Ye), was translated into “Qiaoduo Tiangong” (superb workmanship; art beats nature) by the Japanese. And some are overlapped with ‘natural landscape’, such as “Ten Views of the West Lake” in Hangzhou, the Xuankong (Suspended) Temple in Shanxi, etc. And still the cultural value of some ‘humanistic landscapes’ can’t be inborn. For example, the Palace Museum in Beijing was the palace of emperors in the Ming and Qing Dynasties; the Great Wall used to be a defensive project; the Ming Tombs were the burial place of the emperors and empresses of the Ming Dynasty; the terracotta army was the simulated army to be buried with Emperor Qin Shi Huang… Now they all become invaluable ‘landscape’, as they have been endowed with priceless ‘humanistic’ elements.”

“Ah ha, just a few days, I should look at you with new eyes.” Thus I ended our topic.

Recently, I have been to the Xinya Restaurant and had dinner with some friends.

After a while, one of the guests said, ” Nowadays ‘Culture’ is so popular, everything seems to be connected with ‘Culture’, for example, the wine…”

He held up his glass and continued, “Once you are having some wine, you have to talk about the ‘Culture of Wine’, then how can we resist the so called ‘Culture’? However, I’m wondering that wine is wine and culture is culture, why do we combine them together? Is this ‘Culture of Wine’ a combination of alcohol and culture? Is it because Caocao said ‘only wine can be the soothe for your concerns’ and ‘how many times can we sing while having wine in our life?’”

With the influence of alcohol, I said, “quite indeed.”

“Well, well…” Obviously this man has no idea what I was talking about.

Now other guests required my explanation.

I have no choice but to explain.

“Of course wine is wine and culture is culture. But we have to admit that Caocao’s poem is classic in the’ Culture of Wine’. I’m afraid I have to start from culture when I explain why there is a connection between wine and culture. ”

“Good, good. I ‘m listening!” apparently he is influenced by alcohol, too, and encouraged me to go on.

“As you addressed, nowadays more and more daily things are ‘culturalized’. Take food and drink for example, it is called ‘Culture of Food and Drink’, so the ‘Culture of Wine’ is part of it. But they are not random connections, which means they are not simply as food and drink and culture, or wine and culture. According to Linguistics, ‘Food and Drink’ and ‘Wine’ are attributes of ‘Culture’, so the culture is related to food and drink or wine.

Caocao had some wine and wrote a poem about wine, and this gentleman had some wine and pop up a topic related to ’Culture of Wine’.”

“Haha, indeed an expert! With a few words you have explained what is the ‘Culture of Wine’. ”

“As to expert”, I continued, “Once an expert said that culture is actually a result of wisdom and hard-work of human. One piece of stone is not culture, but if it is carved into a piece of art work, it has some symbolization and conveys inspiration of history, reality, sense and art. This inspiration is actually culture. Therefore, culture is created by human, and culturalized is humanized. ”

“According to you, the ‘Culture of Wine’ is created by drunkards?” the gentleman asked.

“Yes. The Culture of Wine comes from people, for example, the wine game. When people are having wine they want to have more fun. So we have games like playing dice, drawing lots, jenken, guessing numbers and etc, to make the failures drink more wine. Civilized people dislike these vulgar and noisy games, so they compose poems. These wine games can be dated back to 2000 years ago, when it was Zhou Dynasty. Because of written and unwritten records we now can enjoy jenken or the so called the ‘Culture of Wine’.”

“That’s interesting! Drinking is not quite meaningless if you say so.” The gentleman seemed to understand something.

“But the ‘Culture of Wine’ is not equal to wine games. History and legends about making wine, etiquette and utensils of drinking wine, entertainment, literature and art works inspired by wine, and fun fairs about wine are all included in the culture related to wine. Now can you see culturalization is humanization?”

In applause my ‘speech’ ended.

Shakespeare’s creation of Hamlet leads to the saying, “There are a thousand Hamlets in a thousand people’s eyes”; likewise, the interpretation of “culture” is diversified in the eyes of different individuals. It is said that so far, there are hundreds of versions in terms of the rendition of “culture”.

Here we would pick out two versions to see how “culture” is defined.

There is a definition of “culture” in a “broad” or “narrow” sense. The “culture in a broad sense” (Culture with a big C) refers to “the total material and spiritual wealth created by human beings during the development of social history, which, more specifically, include “material culture”, “system culture” and “mental culture”. “Material culture” refers to all the material civilization indispensable to the survival of human society, such as housing, food and drinking, clothing, transportation, living facilities, and so on; “system culture” refers to all the rules and norms on which the human society depends to exist, such as social system, family system, management system, etc; “mental culture” refers to the way of thinking, religious belief, aesthetic consciousness, and the like. Apart from the “Culture with a big C”, there is a definition in a narrower sense (culture with a small c), which refers to the general social habits, such as life style, social customs, and the like.

And there is a “layer” version. The definition is actually to interpret “culture” from different “aspects”. For instance, some divide “culture” into “material culture”, “system culture”, “behavior culture” and “psycho culture”. “Material culture” refers to the physical entity created by human beings; “system culture” refers to the code of conduct of human society; “behavior culture” refers to established mode of behavior during the longstanding intercourse of human beings; and “psycho culture” refers to the value, aesthetic preferences, etc. Some others divide culture into “info culture”, “behavior culture” and “achievement culture”. “Info culture” refers to the overall knowledge of the objective world and human society; “behavior culture” refers to the life style and norms of behavior; and “achievement culture” means the achievement in arts and literature.

In addition, there are versions on “common value”, “spiritual wealth”, “instinct connection”, and so on and so forth. Here we will not enumerate the interpretations one after another so that the diversified “culture definitions” will not like a “galloping horse” to “tramp” “the cultural green lawn” of culture lovers “into a mess”.

Nevertheless, here are several points I need to maunder about:

1. It is really difficult to define “culture”, so quite a number of definitions seem to be biased - some try to render it from angle of “property”, some of “classification”, and they invariably turn out to be partial in the end. Hence some have generalized a definition-like interpretation from the “numerous versions” - “Culture refers to the history, geography, local practices, traditional customs, life style, literature and art, code of behavior, way of thinking, value, etc of an ethnic group or a country.” In my opinion, the interpretation is quite comprehensive and can be used as reference.

2. Of the many a classification on “culture”, the “form” standard seems to be more reasonable. The classification divides “culture” into “material” and “nonmaterial” through the “form” criterion, namely, the “culture” created by human beings can be generalized into two categories – “tangible” and “intangible”. The so-called “tangible culture” refers to those physical entities, such as scenery, architecture, calligraphic works and paintings, craftworks, and so on; the “intangible culture” refers to those that can be comprehensible through some certain expressive form, such as music, opera, handicraft techniques, tea ceremony, and the like. The classification, internationally recognized, is used by the UNESCO to classify the World Cultural Heritages.

3. Some people, due to their indiscriminate conceptions of “type” and “category”, “abstract concept” and “specific entity”, become even more confused when they try to understand “culture”. For instance, the previously mentioned “tangible culture” and “intangible culture” are different categories of culture, while “scenery, architecture, calligraphic works and paintings, craftworks” and “music, opera, handicraft techniques, tea ceremony” are the specific types under their respective categories. If things like scenery, architecture etc are viewed as a “category”, the specific subject under each “category” is the “type”. For example, the newly approved world cultural heritage “Fujian Tulou Buildings” is the “architecture” (type) under the “tangible culture” category, and “Naxi Ancient Music” is the “music” (type) under the “intangible culture” category.

Possibly, all my maundering will also become the “galloping horse” that “tramps” the “cultural green lawn” of culture lovers into a mess. However, if it will be of a little bit help to those who want to understand and spread “culture”, then I have done my job. Just stop here now.

Just a few days ago, I was having a little conversation with a few editors from “Cultural-China”, and of course, it was about the concept of “culture”.

One of them was in a kinda lament mood “in this world, a lot of things look just a like a salad –at the first appearance–clear and simple, you can see what is there with your bare eyes; but when you get to think about it, you are like being thrown into the clouds, because you can’t see nothing around you clearly. Just like this “culture” thing, everyone has heard about it and everyone knows it, but when you actually think about it, what is “culture”? Then no one can answer it……”

Another one of them added “that is just so true. This word (“Wen Hua” is the Chinese word for “culture”) has been talked about for thousands of years in China. At the very beginning, “Wen” meant only symbols including characters while “Hua” meant “to educate”. By the Han dynasty, it became one single word which meant “to educate with characters”. With current words, it means to “educate people so they can understand the world”. However, the “WenHua” we are talking about today has gone far beyond this. It means so much more than just “educate and characters”. There are things such as “ethic culture”, “regional culture”, “tourism culture”, and so on and on…… even in your everyday life; there is culture to be found.”

“That is right” another editor added to the conversation, “one time I was in the subway, the carriage was crowded, and this pregnant lady was trying to get a young white-collar guy to give her his seat. But instead of giving her the seat, he took out a book from his briefcase and pretended to be reading. The pregnant lady was so shocked, and after a while, the only thing she said was ‘Mei WenHua! (Which meant ‘so rude’ in English but literally ‘no culture’ in Chinese)’

“The lady’s word clearly did not mean the guy couldn’t read!” another editor explained.

“No. but it did not involve ‘nonsense’ or ‘not educated’ either.”

“Then, what exactly did the word ‘culture’ mean?”

……

Maybe, this is a question that we will never have an agreement on. However, for the editors working with “culture”, this is the one topic that they will always bear in mind.

And there, along came my first idea of the blog—and idea about “culture”.