Page 186 - A Dictionary of Chinese Symbols BIG Book

I

Ice

bing

A picture showing a child sitting on ice on a winter’s day is a reference to Wang Xiang,
one of the 24 exemplars of filial piety ( xiao). When his mother, who was ill, said she
wanted to eat some carp in the winter, the boy went to the frozen river and sat on it long
enough to thaw through the ice: immediately a big carp sprang out.
‘Cracked ice’ is an expression for marital pleasures in old age. An ‘iceman’ (bing-ren)
is a marriage broker – usually a woman. The semantics of this are noteworthy: a man
once dreamt that he saw someone standing on ice speaking to someone else under the ice.
The dream was interpreted as follows: ‘On the ice stands the male element (yang), under
the ice is the female element (yin). You must mediate between them.’ That is to say, man
and woman are divided by ice, and this division can be set aside only by the ‘icebreaker’,
the marriage broker, not by the couple themselves.

Immortals

xian

Chinese ‘saints’ are men and women who have in their lifetime achieved or developed

supernatural powers, and who have been elevated, after death, to the status of gods.
There are hundreds and hundreds of them, and they are supposed to lead happy care-free
lives for ever and ever in the Kunlun Mountains or on the ‘Islands of the Blessed’ in
the Eastern Sea. On earth, they are mainly revered as genii loci, i.e. their cult is linked to
specific places. It is important to remember that the word xian can be applied to living
people who have shown extraordinary talent and skill in some field. A man may be a xian
because of his prowess as a poet, as a swordsman or even as a drinker; and xian often
figures as part of the professional name of a prostitute.
The eight Immortals (ba-xian) form a special group of ‘saints’. They are often
depicted all together as a group, though sometimes we see them in groups of three.
Membership of this select group has varied over the centuries; at present, the following
belong to it: Zhang Guo-lao, Zhong-li Quan, Han Xiang-zi, He Xian-gu, Lan Cai-he, Li
Tie-guai, Lü Dong-bin and Cao Guo-jiu. (See separate entries.)