Page 352 - A Dictionary of Chinese Symbols BIG Book

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5th day of the 5th month. They were supposed to promote fertility and keep epidemics
away.
Su Su

Su is a specifically Chinese drink which is made from milk. The word has now
acquired adjectival force and is used in the meanings ‘smooth’, ‘soft’, ‘delightful’. The
body of a sixteen-year-old girl may be said to be ‘like su’. The word is often used to
describe the female breast.
Sulphur Sulphur

liu huang

Sulphur is used to ward off the five noxious creatures which threaten people’s lives
on the 5th day of the 5th Chinese month. Above all, it can force women who have
assumed the form of snakes to revert to their real shapes (a reference to the famous
novel ‘Madame White Snake’). At the feast of the summer solstice – which is also a day
when ghosts and demons are active – powdered sulphur is rubbed on the ears and
noses of children to protect them. For the same reasons, sulphur is put into coffins. If
sulphur is rubbed on the body of a pregnant woman, an unborn girl in her womb is
changed into a boy.
Sun Sun

ri

The sun is an embodiment of yang, the male principle. It is associated with the East
where it rises and with the spring when its power begins to make itself felt. It is also a
symbol of the Emperor.
Emperor Wu of the Former Han Dynasty was born after his mother had
dreamt that the sun was entering her body. One of the oldest solar myths is
to be found, according to Marcel Granet, in the fragments that