Divination (II) (Mystery)

My friends did not divine the way those Shang Emperors had. There’re many other ways to do it these days. I’ll give some as I’ve seen or heard.

1. In my previous writing “Bwa3-bui 跋杯” on 04/23/2011, I talked a lot about the practice of using a pair of crescent-shaped, wood or bamboo-made utensil to ask deities questions in the temples. This is one of the commonest ways to divine, often accompanied with the act of 抽籤(cho qian), lot drawing. Please refer to my old writing for the details.

2. 扶乩(fu2 ji):  Usually it’s a ritual practiced in the temple by someone who is “possessed” by a god or an immortal. The messages are conveyed through a spirit writing usually using a stick in sand or incense ashes. The characters have to be read and interpreted by someone who is capable of doing this. Long ago I’ve been to a ritual of this and watched it. I didn’t ask any questions, but I remember the process vividly. I picked up one from YouTube http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ptzZ_2f-Kh8, though it’s not exactly the same as I’ve seen, it’s basically the same thing.

3. 相術(xiang4 shu4) Physiognomy: Fortune-tellers foretell someone’s future by watching his face, features, palm, figure, or 氣(qi4) . . , etc. Some even do this by watching his moles or feeling his wrist bone, which is called 摸骨(mo gu3) in Taiwan.  

4. 測字(ce4 zi4) Literomancy: The literomancer tells someone’s future by the Chinese character and the subject the client gives. To do this, you have to know a lot about the Chinese characters. I goolged and found an example like this, which I’m not sure about the authenticity but just give you an idea what literomancy is like:

Giving the word天(tian), a girl asks if she will marry her boyfriend that she’s been seeing for a couple of years. The literomancer gives a positive answer since the word can be separated into 二(er4), two and人(ren2), person. You put two persons together and it turns into 天. If you extend one of the strokes, 天turns into 夫(fu), which means husband.

(TO BE CONTINUED)

抽籤=抽签

相術=相术

氣=气

測字-测字

Divination (I) (Mystery)

Two friends of mine recently have tried divination respectively. One is indecisive if she should retire; the other wants to know if her husband should go to China for a career change.

A couple of weeks ago I read about how divination占卜(zhan bu3) and worship of ancestors had taken most of the time of China’s emperors in Shang Dynasty (1600 BC–1046 BC). With a gap of some three thousand years and Armstrong’s first step onto the moon, funny that divination is still with us. I’m not saying this judgmentally. I’m more of curious about this.

On a summer day of 1899¹, author and scholar 劉鶚(liu2 e4) went to a Chinese herbal medicine pharmacy in Beijing to get something for his friend Wang suffering from malaria. When the pharmacist was pounding the medicine, 龍骨(long2 gu3), dragon’s bones, which refers to fossils of mammals, such as elephants, rhinos, cattle, etc., Liu saw a certain script similar to Chinese characters on the bone.

Later Liu and Wang went around Beijing’s pharmacies and bought all the “dragon’s bones.” 1058 strange old characters, older than anything that had been known, were found on these bones.

Liu made public his discovery in 1903 with the book 鐵雲藏龜 (tie3 yun2 cang2 gui). Those characters found on the bones are called 甲骨文(jia3 gu3 wen2), Oracle bone script.

  (from Wikipedia)

For years (from 500 A.D.) farmers had dug out from a big mound in 小屯(xiao3 tun2), 河南(he2 nan2) “dragon’s bones” to sell to the pharmacies in town. Nobody had paid much attention to the script on them.

After a large-scale of digging, around 170 thousand bones have been found and some 5000 of them are with script on them. About 4500 characters have been labeled as甲骨文, one third of which were recognized and confirmed the meanings.

The bones, whatever beasts or turtles they’re from, are called 甲骨. The Shang Emperors believed that their ancestors’ souls were around the gods in heaven. Whenever they wanted to communicate with them, they use the bones to divine. They asked about wars, crops, dreams, the weather, . . . or presented their wishes to the ancestors by doing the ritual.

First they polished a bone from the cattle or a shell from the turtle, and carved concaved lines on it. They asked their questions loudly to the ancestors and put a burning hot branch into the concaved lines. The high temperature would crackle the shell making a sizzling sound, which was considered the “talk” of the bone.

Answers to the questions were found from the crackles the heat had made. The questions and answers were often inscribed on the bones or shells and stored.

(TO BE CONTINUED)

Note ¹ : The following description on 甲骨文is based on the book Tecknens Rike (China: Empire of Living Symbols) “漢字的故事” by Cecilia Lindqvist.

劉鶚=刘鹗

龍骨=龙骨

狐群狗黨 (Animal)

One of my friends lost his dog the other day when she rushed out of a pet shop on her first oestrus cycle. It’s a heartbreaking experience and he’s had a hard time getting over it.

Which reminds me of my own experience, when our dog ran away from home on her oestrus cycle. We had kept the dog ever since she was born. You didn’t have to leash her when walking her. She would always follow you back home when called.

But things were quite different when she was on her oestrus cycle. She just ignored us and ran away, staying outside with a gang of dogs. You saw her there but she wouldn’t come back no matter how hard you called.

Such a scene of our dog staying out with a gang of her species makes me realize why we use狐群狗黨(hu2 qun2 gou3 dang3) to describe a gang of villains getting together doing wrong. 狐, fox; 狗, dog; 群and黨both refer to a group or a party. The phrase literally means a group of foxes or dogs.

For example, one of your old friends is keeping bad company and you’d like to advise him to get away from them. You may say to him, “You’d better keep away from those 狐群狗黨 before you get into real trouble.”

Perhaps it’s dogs’ instinct to be together with their own species during a certain period. I just hope very soon my friend’s dog will leave her狗黨 and be back.

狐群狗黨=狐群狗党

狗咬呂洞賓 (xie houyu)

What does it mean when someone says「你這麼做真是狗咬呂洞賓」? “What you did is just like a dog biting Lǚ Dong-bin.”

L ǚ Dong-bin is one of the “Eight Immortals,” 八仙(ba xian) in the legend. It’s said that before Lǚ became one of the Eight Immortals, he was a scholar. He had a friend ,苟杳(gou3 mao3), who was orphaned and lived in poverty. Lǚ thought very highly of him. They became sworn brothers and Lǚ took Gou in, hoping he would study hard and become successful.

One day, a guest came to Lǚ’s and was impressed by Gou. He liked the young man so much that he’d like to marry his beautiful sister to him. Lǚ rejected for Gou in fear that it would distract him from his studies. Hearing about the beauty of the guest’s sister, however, Gou insisted on marrying the girl.

After long meditation, Lǚ said to Gou, “ I won’t stop you as long as the bride spends the first three nights with me.” Though reluctant, Gou nodded his head since he was dependent on Lǚ and even couldn’t afford the wedding.

On the wedding night, feeling humiliated, Gou hid himself away from the crowd. Lǚ enter the bride’s room, which was called 洞房(dong4 fang2), the “cave room” in ancient time, and just sat there reading without unveiling the bride. (It’s a traditional custom for the bride to wear a veil on the wedding day and be unveiled by the groom on the wedding night, which was very likely the first time the two met.)

The bride sat on the bed waiting and waiting until the middle of the night. The groom just wouldn’t go to bed, so the bride slept alone without changing. When she woke up in the morning, her husband had been gone. It went on like this for three nights in a row.

Three days later when Gou finally got to enter his room, he saw his bride crying. She asked, “Why did you just sit there reading, ignoring me for three consecutive nights and left me in the morning?” She looked at her husband, only to find a different face.

The couple then realized that Lǚ was urging Gou not to forget about his studies after getting married in this special way. Now they turned their resentment towards Lǚ into gratitude.

A few years later, Gou garnered success in the imperial exam and became a  high-ranking government official. The couple said goodbye to Lǚ and moved away for Gou’s position.

Eight years later, a fire broke out and burned down Lǚ’s house. He’d lost everything he had. He had no other choice but to go to Gou for help.

He went a long way and finally reached Gou’s place. His old friend treated with hospitality but mentioned nothing about helping. Lǚ stayed for several months but got nothing. Embarrassed and humiliated, he left without saying goodbye.

On arriving his hometown, Lǚ was surprised to see from a distance that his shabby cottage had turned into a new house. He was more surprised to see a coffin in the house and his way howling and mourning.

His wife was stunned to see him, thinking that she had seen a ghost.

The truth is, not long after Lǚ left his home, a gang of workers came to build a house and left when they were done. The day before yesterday, some came to inform Lǚ’s wife of Lǚ’s death. They left a coffin behind. That was why the whole family was mourning over his death.

Lǚ split the coffin with an ax and found a lot of gold and jewelry, along with a letter from Gou:

“I’m not someone ungrateful, who will ignore his friends in need. You had left my wife alone and brokenhearted for three nights, so I make your wife weep for you in return.”

The two were closer ever since. From the story came a Xiehouyu, "苟杳呂洞賓，不識好人心," Gou-mao and Lǚ Dong-bin mistake good guys for bad guys. Since Gou’s name pronounces like 狗咬(Gou3 yao3), it changes into today’s version.

Another saying is that Lǚ Dong-bin had once been bitten by a dog he was feeding. So the Xiehouyu is used to describe when someone bites the hand that feeds him.

Since I have the same surname as Lǚ Dong-bin, if my dog should bite me, I can certainly yell to him, “This is really狗咬呂洞賓!”

狗咬呂洞賓=狗咬吕洞宾

不識好人心=不识好人心

觀音 (Song)

This is Mt. Guan-yin. Located in the northern part of Taiwan, it is famous for its colorful foggy scenes, which was labeled as one of the “Eight scenes of the northern Dan-shui” 淡北八景(dan4 shui3 ba jing3) in Qing Dynasty.

According to Wikipedia, Guanyin 觀音is “the bodhisattva associated with compassion as venerated by East Asian Buddhists, usually as a female.” Watch the picture below, you’ll see why the mountain is named after her.

Taiwanese poet 羅智成 has a poem titled as 觀音. It is set to music composed by musician 李泰祥

柔美的觀音，已沉睡(rou2 mei3 de guan yin, Yi3 chen2 shui4)

稀落的燭群裏(xi luo4 de zhu2 qun2 li3)

她的睡姿是夢的黑屏風(ta de shui4 zi shi4 meng4 de hei ping2 feng)

我偷偷到她髮下垂釣(wu3 tou tou dao4 ta fa3 xia4 chui2 diao4)

每顆遠方的星上(mei3 ke yuan3 fang de xing shang4)

都大雪紛飛(dou da4 xue3 fen fei)

The tender and beautiful Guan-yin has been asleep soundly.

Among the sparse candles,

She is posed as a black folding screen of dream.

Stealthily I go fishing under her hair.

Upon every faraway star

Heavy snowflakes are flying and fluttering.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XQViKqLKaeE

柔美的观音，已沉睡

稀落的烛群里

她的睡姿是梦的黑屏风

我偷偷到她发下垂钓

每颗远方的星上

都大雪纷飞

掩耳盜鈴 (idiom)

Takashi Kawamura, mayor of Nagoya, told Liu Zhiwei, a high-level Chinese official visiting from Nanjing, that his father, who was in Nanjing in 1945 at the end of the Japanese occupation of China, denied that mass murders and rapes known as Nanjing Massacre had ever happened, and that he believed only a “conventional fight” took place.

In “Spring and Autumn Period,” (771-476BC) when Fan, nobility of State of Jin, was exterminated, people rushed to their place to rob. Someone would like to take away a big bell but in vain for the huge size. He tried to hammer it into pieces but was worried that the noise would incur competitors. He covered his ears and kept whacking the bell.

This episode was kept in Lüshi Chunqiu, and we have the idiom掩耳盜鈴(yan3 er3 dao4 ling2) from this story. 掩耳means covering your own ears; 盜鈴to steal a bell.

The author commented as advice to the rulers of a country: “It’s understandable that you don’t want others to hear it. However, it doesn’t make sense to keep yourself from hearing it.”

The idiom then is used to refer to the act of lying to others as well as to yourself. For people like Kawamura, I think they need to brainwash themselves a lot before they try to brainwash others.

These days in Taiwan we have a step-down director-general of BAPHIQ from Council of Agriculture for covering up the outbreak of H5N2 avian flu in Changhua—just another act of 掩耳盜鈴.

掩耳盜鈴=掩耳盗铃

1984 vs. 老天有眼 (chop suey)

In the novel “Nineteen Eighty-Four,” George Orwell depicts a fictional world where the ubiquitous telescreen (transceiving television set) monitors the private and public lives of the populace. The landscape is adorned with posters of the Party leader, Big Brother, bearing the caption “BIG BROGHER IS WATCHING YOU.”

When Orwell composed the novel, it was supposed to be a political sarcasm and the world, a fictional dystopia. He may not have expected that this world full of “eyes” had somehow been seen in today’s Taiwan in some way.

The much discussed Makiyo incident is a proof.

Makiyo, a half-Taiwanese, half-Japanese entertainer of 27, took a taxi with a Japanese man 友寄隆輝and two other female entertainers in Taipei after drinking. After arguing with the driver for refusing to buckle up, the group got off the taxi. 友寄隆輝and Makiyo beat up the driver and kicked him in the head before they left by another taxi, leaving the wounded driver alone on the ground.

When the incident was revealed, Makiyo had a press reference and gave a version of this incident, which was proved to be full of lies after a recording from a taxi driver’s event data recorder was disclosed. The group was slammed by the society for their violence and lies.

In the past when there was no surveillance or EDR as today, when things like this had happened and you had different versions about an incident, which is called 羅生門(luo2 shen men2), Rashomon, a film based on two stories by Ryūnosuke Akutagawa, all you could count on was reliable witnesses, or God to show the truth.

As a result, when a puzzle is resolved and the justice is done, people will always say老天有眼(lao3 tian you3 yan3) , literally meaning God has eyes. Whatever you do, God is watching you. Like what is in the novel, “BIG BROGHER IS WATCHING YOU.” Or what Taiwanese often say 舉頭三尺有神明(ju3 tou2 san chi3 you3 shen2 ming2), Above your head God is watching you.

羅生門=罗生门

舉頭三尺有神明=举头三尺有神明