Page 246 - A Dictionary of Chinese Symbols BIG Book

A-Z 239
Mountain Songs

shan ge

These songs are in origin love-songs of the non-Chinese peoples who live in the
mountains of South and West China. A young man on one mountain sings to a girl on
another – she answers him, and love-songs of considerable length take shape. Dialogue
songs of this kind are later found in purely Chinese settings. Love-songs sung by
prostitutes on boats in the neighbourhood of Su zhou are also sometimes referred to as
‘mountain songs’.

Mouth

kou

The old teaching on the five viscera and the seven (or nine) bodily orifices was
adduced as proof of the thesis that man as microcosm was a replica of the cosmos
itself. Within the human microcosm, the lungs were associated with the eyes,
the liver with the ears: and in the same way, the mouth was associated with the
spleen. The characteristic quality of the spleen was trustworthiness, reliability – a rich
speculative field for doctors and psychologists.
The written sign for kou represents an opening. Hence, the mouth can also symbolise
the female genitalia, and one speaks of a woman’s ‘two mouths’, the upper and the lower.
The reduplicated sign (i.e. one ‘mouth’ above the other) is read as lu, and it denotes a
note in the Chinese musical scale.

Mouth Organ

sheng

The Chinese mouth organ is a wind instrument consisting of several bamboo pipes.
It is mentioned in ancient texts. Nowadays, it is more typically found among the non-
Han minority peoples of South China. The word sheng is phonetically identical with the
word sheng meaning ‘to rise in rank’, so the mouth organ symbolises preferment.
Another way of expressing this is to show a child holding a lotus seed capsule (lian).
This symbolises the wish that one may ‘rise further and further (lian) in rank’. Or, if the
emphasis is on the child, ‘May you continue (lian) to bring sons into the world (sheng)
who will attain high rank.’