A Cultural Dictionary of The Chinese Language

500 Proverbs, Idioms and Maxims 文化五百条

Liwei Jiao

• Publisher: Routledge
• Year: 2019
• ISBN:
  9781000713022
• Edition: 1
• Topic: Languages & Linguistics
• Subtopic: Languages
• Index: Languages & Linguistics

A Cultural Dictionary of the Chinese Language introduces the 500 most important cultural traits of the Chinese as reflected in language use, especially in Chinese idioms ( chengyu ), proverbs and colloquial expressions ( suyu ).

Communicative competence, the ultimate goal of language learning, consists of not only linguistic, but intercultural competence, which enables the language learner to speak with fluency and understanding. The Chinese language is richly imbued with cultural wisdoms and values underlying the appropriateness of idioms in the Chinese language.

The Dictionary provides Intermediate and B1-C1 level learners as well as scholars of the Chinese language with an essential reference book as well as a useful cultural reader.

1 Overall (总论)

1. Chinese language and culture: negative tendency (中国语言的负面倾向) 10

From the perspective of evaluation, the Chinese language is negative overall. Among all the words with evaluative connotation, most being adjectives, there are far more negative ones than positive ones. Chinese idioms (chengyu) are considered formal and refined. However, the ratio of the number of positive idioms to negative ones is 50:1 according to the Contemporary Chinese Dictionary (Xiandai Hanyu Cidian, 2005 edition). Additionally, according to 500 Common Chinese Proverbs and Colloquial Expressions, the most common word found in the entries is ‘bù,’ which means ‘not’ or ‘don’t.’ In contrast, in the Fact on File Dictionary of Proverbs, the two most common words are ‘good’ and ‘man.’

• #37 Stress the past, not the present (厚古薄今); #154 Deterioration (变差); #247 More bad guys (坏人多); #267 Dilution of vulgar words (傻*)

2. Chinese characters and way of thinking (汉字与思维) 5

Does this look like a greenhouse with a few steps? The actual meaning of this Chinese character is almost completely contrary to what a Westerner might imagine. The character is 寒 (hán), which means ‘cold.’ We can catch a glimpse of the Chinese way of thinking when creating characters by analyzing how the meaning of this character is formed. The bottom two horizontal strokes mean ‘ice’ (冫 or 仌). The outside portion of the upper part is 宀, which means ‘house.’ The four (almost) identical cross-like parts stand for 茻, which means grass (hay) clusters, and the remaining part, among the grass (茻), is a curling man. Now the formation of this character is clear: Outside of the house, it is freezing, and inside the house, a man curling up is in some grass/hay for warmth. The character 寒 therefore means ‘cold.’ Usually, the formation of the meaning of a Chinese character is no more than three-fold. In this example, this character has three elements. The first is ice vs. a house and a man, the second is the house and the man inside, and the third is the man and the grass.

• #3 The battle of Chinese character forms: traditional, simplified or pinyin? (汉字之争); #10 Change (化); #60 Laws (法); #78 Blessing and the unfortunate Song dynasty (宋朝年号与‘祐’); #115 Japanese era names feature common Chinese characters (日本年号中的汉字); #161 Antithetical couplets (对联); #179 Discrimination of women (女人干坏事); #184 Wives, housewives and brooms (妻子, 妇女与扫帚); #225 Chinese cooking methods (中国菜的做法); #238 Quality and rice (质量与大米); #272 Vegetables introduced to China (传入中国的蔬菜); #274 Brothers’ names and radicals (兄弟人名的汉字与部首); #276 Southern Chinese names and 阿* (南方人名中的‘阿’); #282 Chinese characters composed of 人 (比, 从, 北, 化)

3. The battle of Chinese character forms: traditional, simplified or pinyin? (汉字之争) 5

After China was defeated by Japan in the first Sino-Japanese War (1894–1895), Chinese intellectuals owed the defeat considerably to traditional characters since they were hard to learn and thus prevented Chinese ordinary people from being literate. From that time on, the call for the abolition of Chinese characters (废除汉字) and their replacement with romanized pinyin (拼音) has surged time to time until the turn of the 21st century when typing on computers made producing Chinese characters easier. Chinese characters have been preserved, but there is divergence between the simplified form (简体字) used in mainland China and the traditional form (繁体字 or 正体字) used mainly in Taiwan, Hong Kong and Singapore. There have been appeals made for the reintegration of some traditional characters back into mainland China.

• #2 Chinese characters and way of thinking (汉字与思维)

4. Auditory impression of the Chinese language (汉语的听觉印象) 10

Chinese sounds loud (if not noisy to many non-Chinese peoples); fluctuant (because of tones); and rhythmic (because of complex cultural, educational and ethnic reasons that will not be expounded here). Below are two lines of verse from Chapter 40 of 西游记 (Journey to the West). They will be annotated only with pinyin, tone patterns and syllable finals, ignoring the meaning for the moment.

一叶浮萍归大海,^1	yi ye fu ping gui da hai,	| | – – – | |
人生何处不相逢.	ren sheng he chu bu xiang feng.	– – | | | – –

1 一叶浮萍归大海, 人生何处不相逢 [-葉--歸--, ---處---] yí yè fú píng guī dà hǎi, rén sheng hé chù bù xiāng féng

First, the tone patterns (平仄) are regulated: alternating between level and oblique within one line and opposite between two lines. Second, all syllables except the middle syllable of the first line end with a vowel sound, and all syllables except the three middle syllables of the second line end with a nasal sound. If possible, ask a Cantonese speaker to read the verse aloud to get a sense of the Chinese language.

• #5 Sound and culture (语音与文化); #49 Nonverbal love (无言的爱); #77 Four magnificent characters and the declination of the Northern Song (‘丰亨豫大’与北宋的衰败); #102 Long live (万岁); #264 Homophonic puns (谐音双关); #265 Fish and ‘surplus’ (鱼和余); #266 Prosperity and prostitution (繁荣‘娼’盛); #271 Forget-me-not (勿忘我)

5. Sound and culture (语音与文化) 2

Besides onomatopoeia such as 嚎啕 (háotáo, as in 嚎啕大哭 ‘cry loudly’) and 嘤嘤 (yīngyīng, as in 嘤嘤啜泣 sob), which imitate sounds, how the names of Chinese traditional musical instruments sound reflect the instruments’ timbres, for example, 琴 (qín, zither with seven strings); 瑟 (sè, zither with more strings than 琴); 笙 (sheng, mouth-blown free reed instrument); 箫 (xiāo, vertical end-blown flute); 钟 (zhōng, bell); 鼓 (gǔ, drum); 笛 (dí, flute); 琵琶 (pípa, pipa) etc.

• #86 Naming taboo (避讳); #162 Music one gets to kneel down when listening (跪着听的音乐); #220 Bats (蝙蝠); #264 Homophonic puns (谐音双关); #265 Fish and ‘surplus’ (鱼和余); #266 Prosperity and prostitution (繁荣‘娼’盛); #267 Dilution of vulgar words (傻*); #271 Forget-me-not (勿忘我)

6. Temporal sequence (时间顺序) 5

Researchers have found that Chinese sentence structure usually follows temporal sequence, for example, 星期日/早上/八点/我开车/去机场/接朋友/来我家/住三天 (literally ‘Sunday morning 8 o’clock I drive a car to the airport to pick up a friend who comes to my home to live for three days.’) with each event after another by strict temporal sequence.

• #252 Modal verb serial ( 能愿动词的连用); #258 Heavenly Stems and Earthly Branches to compute time (天干地支纪年); #274 Brothers’ names and radicals (兄弟人名的汉 字与部首); #285 Chinese ordinal numbers (汉语顺序号)

7. Idioms with markers of simile (带比喻词的成语) 3

Chinese idioms were coined roughly at the same pace that the Chinese language evolved in history. Main markers of simile in idioms include 犹 (yóu), 若 (ruò), 如 (rú) and 似 (sì). There is no idiom with 像, the most common marker of simile in modern Chinese. If there are two markers in one idiom, the structure is very likely to be ‘如X似X,’ for example, 如花似玉 (like-flower-as-jade, very beautiful) and 如饥似渴 (rújī sìkě, as-hungrily-as-thirstily, eagerly).

• #259 Idioms with ‘heaven/earth’ (带‘天/地’的成语)

8. Electricity and Chinese idioms (成语中的电) 2

电 (電, diàn) can mean ‘electricity’ or ‘lightning’; however, ‘electricity’ was introduced into the language a few thousand years later than ‘lightning.’ For this reason, all uses of 电 in Chinese idioms (a marker of traditional and formal language) mean ‘lightning.’

9. Getting rich and building roads (致富与修路) 1

要想富, 先修路² (if [you] want to get rich, first build a road) is a slogan that emerged in the 1980s. This slogan is surprisingly popular among both ordinary people and government officials. New roads pave new ways for the local people to go outside and outsides to come in to do business. Therefore, the local people cheer for new roads from the bottom of their hearts. As for government officials, building news roads brings them power-for-money deals, so they are keen to build roads, parks, subways and airports, here and there, again and again. However, the idea of building a road is not at all new. The first emperor of China, Qin Shi Huang (259 BCE –210 BCE ) built many broad highways that radiated out from Xianyang, the capital of the Qin dynasty. Why had not the slogan 要想富, 先修路, an easy but catchy slogan, emerged in Chinese feudal times? Rhyming is a problematic since 富 and 路 rhyme in Standard Chinese but not in ancient Chinese. However, the real reason might be a verse. . . 损人利己骑马骡, 正直公平挨饿. 修桥补路瞎眼, 杀人放火儿多³ ( . .. those who are selfish ride horses, but those of integrity starve. Those who repair bridges and roads will be blind, but those who commit murder and arson have many sons.) in an extremely popular legendary novel 济公全传 (Adventures of the Mad Monk Ji Gong), published in the late Qing dynasty. In brief, building roads (修路 or 补路) is meritorious, but ordinary people dare not for fear of bad karma.

2 要想富, 先修路 [-] yào xiǎng fù, xiān xiūlù (if-want-be rich, first-build-road)

3 修桥补路瞎眼, 杀人放火儿多 [-橋補---, 殺---兒-] xiūqiáo bǔlù xiāyǎn, shārén fànghuǒ ér duō (build-bridge-mend-road-blind-eye, kill-people-set-fire-son-many)

• #54 Men’s three treasures (农民的三宝)

10. Change (化) 3

The oracle form of 化 depicts one man straight up and one man upside down, thus 化 got the meaning ‘change.’ For example, 化学 (chemistry) is a subject about change. Now 化 functions almost as a suffix with high productivity, for example, 绿化 (to green), 美化 (beautify, to glorify), 西方化 (to Westernize) and 机械化 (jīxièhuà, to mechanize) etc. 化 and its compound words or phrases can serve as an indicato...

Table of contents

• Cover
• Half Title
• Title
• Copyright
• Dedication
• Contents
• Introduction
• Acknowledgements
• List of entries
• 1 Overall (总论)
• 2 National character (民族性格)
• 3 Religion, philosophy, politics, history (宗教, 哲学, 政治, 历史)
• 4 Life, society, arts, literature (生活, 社会, 艺术, 文学)
• 5 Social relations, family, women, education (社会关系, 家庭, 女人, 教育)
• 6 Nature, animals, language (自然, 动物, 语言)
• Appendix 1 English index of entries
• Appendix 2 Alphabetical index of Chinese entries
• Appendix 3 Alphabetical index of Chinese expressions in footnotes
• Appendix 4 Index of entries by their cultural value
• Appendix 5 A brief chronology of Chinese history (to 1912)