Page 262 - A Dictionary of Chinese Symbols BIG Book

A-Z 255
Nose

bi-z

According to the ancient Chinese doctrine of correspondences, the nose is the bodily
orifice corresponding to the lungs: and as it sticks up out of the face, it is also compared
with the penis. ‘The human middle’ (ren zhong) is the line joining the nose to the mouth:
the expression graphically symbolises the pleasures of sex.
As regards men, a large nose is considered preferable to a long one. Most of the girls
in brothels had short noses, which was supposed to indicate a high degree of sexual
awareness. As in Turkey, biting the nose off is a sign of extreme jealousy.

Noxious Creatures, The Five

wu-du

The centipede, the snake, the scorpion, the gecko and the toad: these
are regarded as the five noxious creatures, which people in North China try to expel on
the 5th day of the 5th Chinese month. This particular day is close to the summer solstice
– a critical moment of transition, when mankind is particularly exposed to danger.
In South China, the Dragon Boat festivities are held on the same day ( dragon).
Painters were fond of representing the heroic Zhong-kui, surrounded by

the creatures: the grim-visaged hero is busy slaying them, thus freeing the world from the
evils they betoken.
Each period in Chinese history has its own way of denoting and interpreting the ‘five
evils’. In the People’s Republic, wu-du means ‘bribery and corruption, tax evasion,
misappropriation of state property, slapdash work due to using inferior materials, theft of
state economic information’. (This definition is from the Chinese–German Dictionary
published in Peking in 1964.)