Maqiao Cidian

Basic information

Title: 马桥词典 (Dictionary of Maqiao)

Author: 韩少功 (Han Shaogong)

Original text:https://archive.org/details/maqiaocidian0007hans/page/n7/mode/1up

Translation (bardzo polecam, książka jest naprawdę dobra): https://archive.org/details/dictionaryofmaqi0000hans/page/n1/mode/1up

Presentation: [na google doc będzie]

Who is Who

Bandit Ma: see Ma Wenjie.

Benren: Benyi's same-pot brother; fled to Jiangxi during the Great Leap Forward.

Benyi (also Ma Benyi): Party Branch Secretary in Maqiao.

Commune Head He: leader of the local commune.

Fucha: Maqiao's accountant.

Kuiyan: "lazy" son of Zhaoqing.

Long Stick Xi: a mysterious outsider who introduced "tincture of iodine" to Maqiao.

Ma Ming: leader of Maqiao's "Daoist Immortals," inhabitant of the "House of Immortals."

Ma Wenjie: Maqiao's most famous modern historical figure and former County Leader.

Master Black (also Mou Jisheng): muscular but dim Educated Youth.

Master Nine Pockets: renowned beggar king of Changle.

Shuishui: wife of Zhihuang the stonemason, later a "dream-woman."

Three Ears: unfilial son of Zhaoqing, one of the "Daoist Immortals," later lover of Tiexiang.

Tiexiang: daughter of Master Nine Pockets, later wife of Benyi and lover of Three Ears.

Uncle Luo: former village leader; Maqiao's oldest cadre.

Wanyu: Maqiao's singing star.

Xiongshi: son of Zhihuang and Shui Shui, killed in delayed blast of Japanese bomb.

Yanwu: talented younger brother of Yanzao.

Yanzao: "Traitor to the Chinese," persecuted and bullied for being a landlord's son.

Zhaoqing: notoriously stingy inhabitant of Maqiao, father of Three Ears.

Zhihuang: Maqiao's stonemason, famed for his stupidity, married toShuishui.

Zhongqi: Maqiao's resident gossip and busybody.

ATTENTION COMRADES !!!!!!!

Due to technical issues (and the fact that I study sinology cause I am a technical dumb-ass that cannot even open a power point without sth catching on fire) the fragments will be given in a form of Google Doc. After reading them, pretty please upload the summary directly onto the wiki (or to google doc too, if you are feeling generous, i don't give a duck). Thank you for your attention comrades and God Save the Queen.

Fragments to summarize

https://docs.google.com/document/d/10WL6Nu4vHXLI87i5EIJqy_SywLchGPhmr4kYevAARqQ/edit?usp=sharing

YL

Third of the Third [三月三]

The author says that every year on the third day of the third month, Maqiao people ate black rice (died with wild grass juice). That day the also sharpened their knives and screamed and roared together. The knives came back to life after a whole year of not being used, they were used by The Savages of the Luo Clan. The knives were a nightmare that scared other people. This ritual could be seen as linked to farming preparations. They believed that once the knives were sharpened and shone in the sun, the spring would come.

ZYX ( ͡° ͜ʖ ͡°)

Gruel [浆]

From the beginning, the author tells us that the word "gang" in the Maciao dialect (pronounced jian in Mandarin). It originated in the poor mountain village of Maciao, where grain was scarce and the word "porridge" was quite commonly used. Also, in the biography of Bao Xuan in the seventy-second chapter of the Han History, there is the phrase "wine into gruel, meat into bean leaves,", referring to those who live in waste and luxury, treating wine as porridge and meat as bean leaves. From this it is clear how the term "porridge" has since come to refer more generally to the food and drink of the poor. When educated youth first came to Maciao, they often mistook "eating gang (gruel)" as "eating gan (dry grain)," thus confusing the word with its exact opposite. The people of Maciao always replaced the "j" sound with the hard "g" sound: for example, the word for "river" (jiang) was also pronounced "gang". Therefore, "eating porridge" sometimes sounded like "eating river", which symbolized as well as possible that when the harvest was late and there was nothing in the pots in every house but water thickened by a small amount of grain.

AD ಠ_ಠ

Standing the Body [企尸]

The author describes a ritual that received the name of "standing the body". After Kuiyuan dies, Fangying refuses to bury his body underground and instead, insists that the coffin stands vertically upright. The standing coffin became a way to express plaint. With this custom, people hoped to attract the attention of the officials. They used rocks to support the sides of the coffin in order to balance its weight. The stones placed around the coffin, tossed into great piles, symbolised that the grievance was as enormous as the mountains. The upright position of the coffin posed as a statement that even the dead have to voice their complaints and until they are heard, they cannot rest in the ground. ⚰️💀

AX (=^ェ^=)

Striking Red [撞红]

The word "striking red" refers to the moment during intercourse on the wedding night when a woman lightly bleeds from her genital organs, signifying that she was a virgin. Taking a young virgin as a bride was once a taboo in Maqiao society."Striking red" was even considered an unfavorable sign. This was due to the fact that in less developed areas, where production efficiency was very low, people wanted as many people as possible to work. Therefore, when choosing a wife, those women who were already pregnant were favored. At that time, no one cared about moral chastity. However, it had its disadvantages. Men felt disgust and aversion toward the children of other men and tried to get rid of them in any way possible, often very brutally. Mothers, trying to save their firstborn children, saved them by placing them on the side of the road or sending them downstream, hoping that someone would find and take them. The abuse of the firstborn son born of another man ended when the Communist Party came to power.

TXL ノ( º _ ºノ)

Menstrual holes

In this part it is explained that just as humans menstruate, so do the fields, which are by nature maternal. When the water level needed to be adjusted, such holes were dug up in the fields. It was mostly the elders who took up such task, working quietly in the middle of the night. After a long day of work, weary farmers could freshen themselves up in the water of menstrual holes. It’s described almost like a ritual to restore one’s vitality.

WMF (ง’̀-‘́)ง

A small but ferocious variety of mosquito known as the "army mosquito" in Maqiao village is described. They explain that these mosquitoes were introduced to the area by a provincial army that stayed in the village for a time. The narrator recounts the relentless attacks of these mosquitoes, particularly during the summer when work ended late and people were too tired to defend themselves properly. The villagers developed a technique of continuously moving their legs while eating to avoid being bitten, as stopping for even a moment would invite a swarm of mosquitoes. Despite the annoyance, people refrained from swatting the mosquitoes due to the futility of the action and the fear of injuring themselves in the process. Eventually, as night fell, the mosquitoes would tire and the buzzing would diminish. Overall, it vividly portrays the relentless presence and impact of these army mosquitoes on the villagers' daily lives.

YSY

Confucian [道学]

Firstly, the narrator gives an example of the word's usage. Then he goes on to explain that the term referes to etiquette, morals and intelect, so it is a rather positive word, but then mentions that because of the hypocrisy of Confucianism over the years it can invoke an uncomfortable feeling. Then he asks philosophical questions, such as "can sympathy and affection exist between humans" and wonders if Maqiao people replaced other words with "Confucian" because they had doubts about human nature and what feelings can these doubts produce.

AKR ☉_☉

The passage describes the cultural differences in tea consumption between rural Maqiao people and city dwellers. In Maqiao, people prefer ginger tea, which is brewed by pounding ginger with salt and pouring boiling water over it. They also roast flavorings like beans and sesame seeds in iron pots. Despite the risk of burns, they handle the pots barehanded to prevent scorching. The aroma of roasting ingredients adds to the tea's appeal. Additionally, red dates and eggs can be added for variety. However, Benyi, a rural dweller, finds it puzzling that city people, despite their wealth, prefer low-grade colored tea, which lacks spices and freshness. Colored tea is often reheated and made from tea-tree twigs, giving it a dark hue akin to soy sauce. Benyi feels both amused and sorry for city people who miss out on the rich flavors and rituals of pounded tea.

KMJ (▀̿Ĺ̯▀̿ ̿)

Jackal-Fiend [豺猛子] In the Tianzi Peak was hidden a small stockade, to get to it you had to cross a small, not very deep stream. The narrator crossed it many times on his way to Chazi Bow. One time a companion asked him, if he spotted something unusual about the river. Turns out that the long rock that was previously in the water was actually a jackal-fiend. Maoqiao people said that this fish eats other fish and not plants, it was firece at times but mostly stoic, people would trad over it for months without it moving. After that the narrator started to wonder everytime he was big rocks or big lumps of wood. Will it move this time, become alive and escape or not?

SSM ╮ (. ❛ ᴗ ❛.) ╭

Each of Maqiao's oxen had its own name. People had lots of different words for oxen: for example, there were oxen that "understood," meaning oxen with intelligence; there were oxen "born-to-the-pen," meaning oxen that had been brought up like family, oxen that ox-rustlers found hard to steal away. Although Three-Hairs had something of a foul temper, it was still an ox born-to-the-pen.

Two months before it died, nothing had been seen of it for two days, the team leader had sent people searching everywhere with no result, and everyone thought it'd never be found again, that it'd already been slaughtered or sold by ox-rustlers. But on the evening of the third day, while I was playing chess at Zhihuang's, Zhihuang unexpectedly turned back from relieving himself and said his ox whip was twitching on the wall, there was definitely something up, definitely. Maybe Three-Hairs had come back. No sooner were we out of the door than we heard Three-Hairs' lows and saw a familiar black shadow in front of the oxpen. Right at that moment it was butting the wooden oxpen with its horns-clunk, clunk, clunk-wanting to get inside. Half a length of ox rope was hanging from its nose, its tail had been cut to half its length for some unknown reason, its whole body was covered with dozens of bloody scars, its whiskers were in a real state and it had clearly lost a lot of weight. After escaping from the ox-rustlers it must have meandered all over the mountains on its long, long tramp home.

LML ( ͡ᵔ ͜ʖ ͡ᵔ )

Model Worker

The texts talks about how commune wanted every team to pick a model worker who would study philosophy and attend special meetings in the commune. Benyi was not present so his uncle Luo took charge. After the breakfast he assigned work to some other workers and made Wanyu a model field worker. The narrator laughed about it and asked why don't they put to a vote who should be a model worker. Luo replied that Wanyu lacks skills and strenght to do anything else and other people agreed. The author notes that the person being the model worker changes depending on the weather conditions, bringing up an example of other worker called Fucha.

PMJ (づ｡◕‿‿◕｡)づ

One night, something happened - a big mountain pig (all the mountain pigs were called "Master Black") snuck into the village and so the men attacked it. The pig ran away and the men were disappointed by it. All of the doors were wide open that night, and the men had taken weapons from their houses and left - when anything happened in the village, they always had to intervene. After a while, not achieving any success everybody returned to their houses.

AHY

Curse-grinding

The author mentions the unusual habit of curse-grinding. This is a kind of procedure for taking revenge on enemies of the local society. If the visitor makes something very inappropriate, the members of the society covertly circle three times around him. Then they wait for him to go into the nearby woods and they start to call out some complex and often tongue-twisting rhymes. It would often make the victims get lost in the forest, being unable to tell the directions and exposed to some traps, wild animals and insects. The next step in the whole procedure is so-called soul-taking incantation. It would finally make the unhappy victim change into a zombielike creature.

WXT ʕ •ᴥ•ʔ

Lax

To explain this word, the narrator introduces us to the story of Zhaoqing. On one occasion, when the narrator was in danger as he almost fell from a height, Zhaoqing witnessed this and tried to summon some help, crying over the narrator's fate. The situation made a very strong impression on the narrator, but he did not know how he could thank Zhaoqing. It was only after Zhaoqing's death that he returned the favour by bringing him cotton blankets to his coffin, on which he could finally rest in peace and 'relax'.

The word 'lax' thus means ‘to rest’, ‘to relax’.

WYX ~(˘▾˘~)

Yellow-Grass Miasma

In Maqiao, Zhaoqing warned the speaker not to venture into the mountains early in the morning due to the presence of poisonous miasma, which could cause severe illness or death. Different types of miasma were associated with different seasons. Even during the daytime, caution was necessary when entering the mountains, including abstaining from certain foods and activities. Zhaoqing emphasized the importance of drinking rice wine before mountain expeditions to bolster one's vitality.