Page 172 - A Dictionary of Chinese Symbols BIG Book
P. 172
A-Z 165
Hall
tang
From the Chinese point of view, the main reception area in a house. The ‘reception hall’
was of cardinal importance ( apple, birthday, canopy). The word tang, however, can
also refer to a business undertaking of any sort.
The word is also applied to the lachrymal sac under the eye: other metaphors for this
are ‘the recumbent silkworm’ and ‘the dragon palace’. Ideally this part of the eye was
well developed and reddish in colour. A woman whose tang was dry and wrinkled or
even liver-spotted would not have any children.
A tang-ke (‘hall-guest’) was a girl working the ‘Flower-boats’. The cai-tang
(‘Vegetarian Hall’) was the common denominator to which (according to Maximilian
Kern) all Taoist sects were reduced in popular parlance.
Han Xiang-zi
Han Xiang-zi with his flute
