The Corpse Reader (64 page)

So far, so good. “Genrefication” is a way of organizing, and organization is necessary. But maybe the human tendency to give fixed labels to genres is less so. We label genres “great” or “minor,” but these labels never depend on an objective classification of each individual book.

I say this because I have often heard the historical novel referred to as a “minor” genre. Every time I hear this, I wonder whether the person making this point is talking about a specific novel or, really, is just following common opinion. To illustrate my point, let’s imagine for a moment a writer of unusual skill writing a tragic love story about two youths whose families, the Capulets and the Montagues, hate one another. Just because it is set in sixteenth-century Venice, should
Romeo and Juliet
be called nothing more than historical fiction, rather than the greatest love story ever told?

This leads us to the ineffable Jose Manual Lara’s definition of genres: “In reality, there are only two types of novels, those that are good and those that are bad.”

Cí Song was born in 1186 in Jianyang, a subprefecture of Fujian. His father, Kung Song, was not an outstanding student but managed, due to the facilities provided by Emperor Ningzong, to pass the governmental exams. Obsessed with his son’s future, Kung had Cí take lessons with a follower of Hsi Chu before entering the
t’ai-hsue
, the National University at Lin’an (current-day Hangzhou). In 1217, after taking courses in medicine, law, and criminology, Cí Song obtained a
Chin-shih
doctorate, which qualified him to become a sheriff in Yin, in the subprefecture of Chekiang. But his father’s sudden death prevented him from taking the post, as he had to withdraw from public life to observe the customary mourning period. Almost a decade later, Cí Song became a registrar in Hsin-feng, in the subprefecture of Kiangsi. His successes in forensics made his quartermaster envious, and the latter had him demoted several times until Cí Song gave up the life of an official. After the death of the quartermaster, though, Cí Song took up his former post and went on to rise through the administrative ranks,
including subprefect, prefect, and judicial intendant. He dedicated himself to forensic study and analysis, discarding several ancient, esoteric, and magic-based practices. Some of his innovations are still in use today. He died in 1249, two years after completing the first and most important scientific treatise on forensics in history, the
Hsi yuan lu hsiang I
.

Alchemy:
Jindanshu
, or “gold and cinnabar technique,” is the term most commonly used to refer to external Taoist alchemy, or
waidan
. The first alchemical techniques are mentioned in works such as the
Huainanzi
using the term
huanbaishu
, or “white and yellow technique,” colors that designate silver and gold or their substitutes. Cinnabar also took on considerable importance in the manufacture of pills or long-life elixirs. This operation is known as
liandanshu
(“cinnabar refinement technique”) or
xiandanshu
(“cinnabar immortality technique”). Numerous chemical and botanical discoveries were made in the application of these procedures, with various therapeutic uses. During the Han dynasty, Taoist alchemists, in trying to formulate an immortal elixir, created numerous fires by experimenting with mixes of sulfur and saltpeter (potassium nitrate). One of these alchemists, Boyang Wei, wrote a text on alchemy called
The Kinship of the Three
, pointing to the explosive properties of certain materials. Many of the early mixes of Chinese gunpowder contained toxic substances such as mercury and arsenic and can therefore be considered a form of early chemical warfare. From the time of the Tsong dynasty, the term
dandingpai
, or
“cinnabar and crucible,” began to be used to refer to alchemy in general.

Bialar
: In Cí Song’s time, men always went out with their heads covered by a cap, a mortarboard, a bonnet, or a skullcap, and with their hair tied in a bun underneath. Clothes, and in particular a person’s hat, reflected social status. A winged cap might “fly” horizontally over the ears or have a turned-down brim, depending on the rank of the wearer. Poor people bundled up a threadbare strip of cloth and placed it on their heads.

Birthdays: The Chinese count people’s ages differently from how it is done in the West. In the West, the birthday is the anniversary of one’s birth, but in China people are considered one year old at birth, and turn two years old at the first lunar new year (the first new moon in January or February) of their life. For example, a child born in November will be two years old by the end of February, even though only three to four months have passed. The date of birth was recorded only to determine the person’s horoscope rather than to measure age.

Conservation Chamber: Also known as
tong bing jian
, or “bronze icebox,” this was a small metal chest with ice-filled compartments for conserving food, ice cream, or drinks. One of the first proven refrigerators was found in the province of Hubei and dated to around 300 BC.

Coolie: A lower-class worker or servant or an unqualified peon. The term has been used in the West as a pejorative reference to the Asian labor force that immigrated to the Americas in the nineteenth century. It is associated with the English word
coolie
as used in reference to a stevedore or longshoreman. The word originated as
gūlí
or
kŭlì
, which translates as “the bitter use of brute force,” and has cognates in the Bengali
kuli
and the Hindu
qūlī
.

Hanfu
: The traditional clothing worn by the Han tribe, which has made up the majority of the population throughout China’s history. The
hanfu
consisted of a loose-fitting white gown with wide sleeves that crossed the chest and attached to the belt. Beneath this, men wore pantaloons. Homeless or destitute people wore hemp jackets and scruffy pantaloons and turbans. Women and men wore black silk caps and long-sleeved silk tunics dyed turquoise, vermilion, and purple, and fastened with jade, gold, or rhinoceros horn buckles. The outfits were regulated by sumptuary laws, provisions that restricted the wearing of the most luxurious garments to the upper classes. These laws were ineffective in practice. Imperial fashions were blatantly imitated by the socially aspirational mercantile classes, and nine out of ten people ignored the law. The
hanfu
influenced traditional dress in other countries, such as the kimono in Japan, the
hanbok
in Korea, and the
áo tú than
in Vietnam.

Hourglass/Water Clock: These were used in China for thousands of years BC. In AD 1086 the Chinese scientist Su Song invented an astrological clock powered by water, outdoing the contemporaneous mechanical European clocks for precision. This clock, in the form of a six-meter-tall tower, used a tank from which water flowed out over paddles on a wheel to put mechanisms in motion. These mechanisms made various figures appear to indicate the hours and, with the accompaniment of a gong and tabors, moved a celestial sphere with stars and constellations. On a daily basis, this clock was accurate within two minutes.

Jin, Yurchen: An Asian people inhabiting the area around the River Amur, located on what is now Russia’s border with China.
Antecedents of the Manchu people, in 1127 they sacked Kaifeng, which had until then been the Chinese capital, leading to the abdication of the Northern Tsong dynasty. After the Chinese fled the capital, a new dynasty arose to the south, making its center in Lin’an. The Southern Tsong continued to battle the powerful Jin for more than a decade until a peace treaty was signed ceding all of northern China to the invaders. Despite several attempts, the Southern Tsong never regained these territories.

Li
: A measure of distance equivalent to 560 meters, or 1,837 feet. Punishments by exile sometimes varied from 2,000 to 3,000
li
in distance, that is, between roughly 1,000 to 1,500 kilometers, or 600 to 900 miles.

Lin’an (current-day Hangzhou): The Southern Tsong dynasty’s capital city. After the Jin invasion, the Tsong retreated south and made their capital in Hangzhou, renaming it Lin’an. The city has since taken back its previous name.

Moxibustion: An Eastern medicinal therapy using the root of a sage plant pressed into the shape of a cigar, or moxa. The end is lit and either pressed against the patient’s skin, producing a controlled burn, or placed next to acupuncture holes to pass heat into them.

Mu
: A measurement of land equivalent to 666 square meters, or 2,185 square feet.

Neo-Confucianism: Three philosophies peacefully coexisted during the Tsong dynasty: Confucianism, Taoism, and Buddhism. However, within the bureaucratic elite, neo-Confucianism gained in popularity. This movement upheld the moral standards and traditional policies of Confucianism but joined them with Taoist
and Buddhist concepts, including ideas extracted from
The Book of Changes (I Ching)
and yin-yang theories associated with the
taiji
symbol. A typical neo-Confucian motif is contained in the painting known as
The Three Masters Are One
, which depicts Confucius, Buddha, and Laozi drinking from the same pitcher. But many neo-Confucians declared themselves opposed to such trends, rejecting Buddhism as a faith system and condemning the adoration of Buddha. In spite of this, neo-Confucian texts adapted Buddhist thinking and beliefs as a way of enhancing Confucianism. Neo-Confucianism was the official creed in China from the time of its development during the Tsong dynasty until the beginning of the twentieth century. Among its many strictures, neo-Confucianism prohibited the opening up of corpses, though it allowed the examination of those already opened as a cause or consequence of death. Homosexuality was also considered libidinous and reprehensible.

Palanquin: A kind of chair or litter, usually closed and covered, used in the East to transport royalty and high-ranking officials.

Poisonous Waters: An encyclopedia from the time of the Chin dynasty containing what is possibly the first recorded reference to dengue fever. The volume was written between 420 and 265 BC, edited formally in AD 610 during the Tang dynasty, and reedited in AD 992 during the Northern Tsong dynasty. Dengue fever is a severe illness transmitted by the
Aedes aegypti
mosquito, which breeds in fetid or polluted water. A particularly life-threatening variety is dengue hemorrhagic fever, which causes loss of liquid and blood due to coagulation problems, which can bring about shock and death in as little as four hours.

Prefecture: During the Southern Tsong dynasty, China was divided, for administrative purposes, into sixteen circuits (
lu
) or
provinces (
tao
), each roughly the same size as Ireland, and with a governor who was the judicial intendant. Each circuit was subdivided into ten to twenty prefectures, locally governed administrative units with a certain number of officials and assistants. Every prefecture was then divided into subprefectures, or districts (
hsien
), between two and twenty per prefecture, each usually overseen by two or three officials. The subprefect (
chih-hsien
or
hsien-ling
), who acted as judge and magistrate and carried out other administrative functions, had under him a registrar (
chupu
), who was in charge of tax collection, as well as a sheriff or chief of police (
hsien-wei
), who was responsible for keeping the peace and ensuring laws were upheld.

Punishments:
Lingchi
, or death by one thousand cuts, was the worst punishment in the penal code. But there were many other forms of punishment. Whipping with bamboo canes was one of the most common; the length, width, and weight of the canes were strictly stipulated and categorized. The
jia
was a yoke made of a square piece of dry wood that could be separated in half and had a hole in the middle for the head. Handcuffs, also known as wives, were made of dry wood and could only be used on men; foot shackles were made of metal.