Category: Cultural Notes

The original text is jinhua zigao 金花紫誥 [gold flower, purple-ink edict]. An imperial edict written on golden-floral silk paper and sealed with purple ink. In the Song Dynasty, one…

The original text is ding 錠. Ding refers to lumps of metal or medicine. It is also a quantifier, the unit for calculating lumps similar to an ingot.…

The original text is ni 猊. Also known as suanni 狻猊 or 狻麑, it is a wild beast. It has the shape of a lion, and is said to be the nine sons of dragon. Because lion did…

The original text is ruma 如麻 [like hemp]. It came from the idiom xinluan ruma 心亂如麻 [mind so tangled like hemp]. Because the textile of hemp is so convolutedly woven, it becomes a metaphor for someone’s upset…

The original text is huangsha 黃沙 [yellow sand]. It can refer to sandy soil or desert areas. It may also represent prison. It can also indicate a…

Jiuquan 九泉 [nineth spring] refers to the place where the dead are buried, that is, in the underworld. Because when digging deep into the ground, yellow spring water will come…

The original text is qipai guan 棋牌官 [the officer of flags and banners], which refers to the military offices who were responsible for transmitting orders and commands. They would hold the…

The original text is xiongxiao 兇梟 [ominous owl], referring to accidental disasters. Xiao 梟 [owl] is understood as a kind of unfilial bird in the first Chinese dictionary Shuowen jiezi 說文解字 [Explaining Graphs and Analyzing Characters]. Lu Ji 陸機 (261-303) in his annotation to Book of Songs says that when the children of xiao grow…

Chuixiong diezu 捶胸跌足, literally translates to stomping and pounding against one’s chest. But, it also describes people as extremely sad.