Ice and Fire: Chung Kuo Series (47 page)

the Chinese legend relates that in ancient times a turtle crawled from a river in
Luoshu province, the patterns on its shell forming a three by three grid of numeric
pictograms, the numbers of which – both down and across – equalled the same total
of fifteen. Since the time of the Shang (three thousand-plus years ago) tortoise shells
were used
in divination, and the Luoshu diagram is considered magic and is often used as a charm
for easing childbirth

a waist-length ceremonial jacket

Whilst, in its modern form, the ‘game of the four winds’ was introduced towards the
end of the nineteenth century to Westerners trading in the thriving city of
Shanghai, it was developed from a card game that existed as long ago as
AD
960. Using 144 tiles, it is generally played by four players. The tiles have numbers
and also
suits – winds, dragons, bamboos and circles

a unit of currency. See
yuan

a strong, sorghum-based liquor

common saying, ‘It is fate!’

‘plum blossom’

sister

‘sub humans’. Used in Chung Kuo by those in the City’s uppermost levels to denote
anyone living in the lower hundred

literally, ‘the one standing in the door’. The most common (and cheapest) of prostitutes

literally ‘the people’; used (as here) by the Minor Families in a pejorative sense,
as an equivalent to ‘plebeian’

the Dynasty that ruled China from 1368 to 1644. Literally, the name means ‘Bright’
or ‘Clear’ or ‘Brilliant’. It carries connotations of
cleansing

A Chinese ‘acre’ of approximately 7,260 square feet. There are roughly six
mou
to a Western acre, and a 10,000-
mou
field would approximate to 1666
acres, or just over two and a half square miles

‘Mother’; a general term commonly addressed to any older woman

rendered in Cantonese as ‘mooi-jai’. Colloquially it means either ‘little sister’
or ‘slave girl’; though generally, as here, the latter.
Other Mandarin terms used for the same status are
pei-nu
and
yatou
. Technically, guardianship of the girl involved is legally signed over in return
for money

common term for ‘Man’

‘How are you?’

literally ‘bird’, but here, as often, it is used euphemistically as a term for the
penis, often as an expletive

daughter

an unmarried woman; a term equating to ‘Miss’

literally ‘Eighty-One’; here referring specifically to the Central Council of the
New Confucian officialdom

literally ‘white man’

‘hundred pens’; term used for the artificial reality experiments renamed ‘shells’
by Ben Shepherd.

supervisor

a ‘jewelled cloud’
ch’a

a simple long garment worn by men

the technical scientific term for ‘half-life’

a four-stringed lute used in traditional Chinese music

Change!

an apple, symbol of peace

the east

Sun Tzu’s
The Art Of War
, written over two thousand years ago. The best English translation is probably Samuel
B. Griffith’s 1963 edition. It was a book
Chairman Mao frequently referred to

levelling. To bring down or make flat. Here, in Chung Kuo, it is also a terrorist
organization

the ‘animal soul’ which, at death, remains in the tomb with the corpse and takes its
nourishment from the grave offerings. The
p’o
decays with the
corpse, sinking down into the underworld (beneath the Yellow Springs) where – as a
shadow – it continues an existence of a kind. The
p’o
is believed to come into
existence at the moment of birth (see also
hun
)

an upper garment (part shirt, part jacket) worn originally by both males and females,
in imitation of Manchu styles; later on a wide-sleeved, calf-length version was worn
by
women alone

three

the three palaces

the eighth and final stage of respect, according to the ‘Book Of Ceremonies’, it involves
kneeling three times, each time striking the forehead three times
against the ground before rising from one’s knees (in k’ou t’ou one strikes the forehead
but once). This most elaborate form of ritual was reserved for Heaven and its son,
the
Emperor. See also
liu k’ou

abbreviated form of
san kuei chiu k’ou San Kuo Yan Yi The Romance of The Three Kingdoms
, also known as the
San Kuo Chih Yen I
. China’s great
historical novel, running to 120 chapters, it covers the period from
AD
168 to
AD
265. Written by Lo Kuan-chung in the early Ming dynasty. Its
heroes, Liu Pei, Kuan Chung and Chang Fei, together with its villain, Ts’ao Ts’ao,
are all historical personages. It is still one of the most popular stories in modern
China

the ‘Feast of the Dead’

the south

the literal meaning is ‘mountains and water’, but the term is normally associated
with a style of landscape painting that depicts rugged mountain scenery with
river valleys in the foreground. It is a highly popular form, first established in
the T’ang Dynasty, back in the seventh to ninth centuries
AD

specially trained assassins, named after the monks of the
shao lin
monastery

literally, ‘little grandmother’. A young girl who has been given the responsibility
of looking after her siblings

a ‘tongue’ or taster, whose task is to safeguard his master from poisoning

‘caution’

‘god girls’ – superior prostitutes

special elite force, named after the ‘palace armies’ of the late T’ang dynasty

‘Master’. Here used as a term of respect somewhat equivalent to our use of ‘Mister’.
The term was originally used for the lowest level of civil
servants, to distinguish them socially from the run-of-the-mill ‘Misters’ (
hsian sheng
) below them and the gentlemen (
ch’un tzu
) above

a peach brandy

Outlaws of the Marsh
, a long historical novel, attributed to Lo Kuan-chung, but re-cast in the early siteenth
century by ‘
Shih
Nai-an’, a scholar.
Set in the eleventh century, it is a saga of bandits, warlords and heroes. Written
in pure
pai hua
– colloquial Chinese – it is the tale of how its heroes became bandits. Its
revolutionary nature made it deeply unpopular with both the Ming and Manchu dynasties,
but it remains one of the most popular adventures among the Chinese populus

Chinese chess; a very different game from its Western counterpart

‘Beat’, here a heavily amplified form of Chinese folk music, popular amongst the young

an elaborate girdle pouch

the Superintendancy of Agriculture

literally ‘pockets’ but here denoting Representatives in the House at Weimar. ‘Owned’
financially by the Seven, historically such
tai
have
served a double function in the House, counterbalancing the strong mercantile tendencies
of the House and serving as a conduit for the views of the Seven. Traditionally they
had been elderly,
well-respected men, but more recently their replacements were young, brash and very
corrupt, more like the hoppoes of the Opium Wars period

the Original, or One, from which the duality of all things (
yin
and
yang
) developed, according to Chinese cosmology. We generally associate the
t’ai
chi
with the Taoist symbol, that swirling circle of dark and light supposedly representing
an egg (perhaps the
Hun Tun
), the yolk and the white differentiated

a white wool flower, worn in the hair

‘Great Fire’

Mount T’ai, the highest and most sacred of China’s mountains, located in Shantung
province. A stone pathway of 6293 steps leads to the summit and, for thousands
of years, the ruling emperor has made ritual sacrifices at its foot, accompanied by
their full retinue, presenting evidence of their virtue. T’ai Shan is one of the five
Taoist holy
mountains, and symbolizes the very centre of China. It is the mountain of the sun,
symbolizing the bright male force (
yang
). ‘As safe as T’ai Shan’ is a popular saying,
denoting the ultimate in solidity and certainty

Court Astrologer, a title that goes back to the Han Dynasty

literally, ‘beautiful and imposing’. It is the title chosen by the Seven, who were
originally the chief advisors to Tsao Ch’un, the tyrant. Since
overthrowing Tsao Ch’un, it has effectively had the meaning of ‘emperor’

the Chinese name for the Roman Empire. They also knew Rome as Li Chien and as ‘the
land West of the Sea’. The Romans themselves they termed the ‘Big
Ts’in
’ – the
Ts’in
being the name the Chinese gave themselves during the Ts’in dynasty (
AD
265–316).

‘spiritual power’, ‘true virtue’ or ‘virtuality’, defined by Alan Watts as ‘the realisation
or expression of the Tao in actual
living’

‘innocent westerners’. For ‘innocent’ perhaps read naïve

a bamboo flute, used both as a solo instrument and as part of an ensemble, playing
traditional Chinese music

the ‘earth prison’ or underworld of Chinese legend. There are ten main Chinese Hells,
the first being the courtroom in which the sinner is sentenced and the last
being that place where they are reborn as human beings. In between are a vast number
of sub-Hells, each with its own Judge and staff of cruel warders. In Hell, it is always
dark, with no
differentiation between night and day

‘Heaven’, also, ‘the dome of the sky’

literally ‘to fill the place of the dead wife’; used to signify the upgrading of a
concubine to the more respectable position of wife

bracelets of gold and jade

‘Iron Goddess of Mercy’, a
ch’a

literally, ‘the iron pen changes not’, this is the final phrase used at the end of
all Chinese government proclamations for the last three thousand years