Page 391 - A Dictionary of Chinese Symbols BIG Book

A Dictionary of Chinese Symbols 384

ceremony. A ‘black bottle’ was used by magicians to hold spirits captive. A hot
bottle was known as a ‘warming-wife’ or ‘foot-wife’; while ‘oil-bottle’ was a metaphor
for the penis.
In the fields of South China, earthenware urns at least a couple of feet deep are still a
common sight. These are the so-called ‘bone-vases’. They used to contain the bones of
relatives which were dug up two years after burial, stripped of remaining flesh and laid in
these jars as their final resting-place. It gives a Chinese the creeps to see a foreigner
buying a ‘bone-jar’ to put in the lounge.

Vinegar
Vinegar

cu

‘Drinking vinegar’ is the standard Chinese metaphor for ‘feeling jealousy’. As a result, in
North China the word is avoided like the plague, and if you have to ask for some vinegar
at dinner, you say, ‘May I have some of the taboo word please?’
It used to be part of the marriage ceremony to bring a bowl full of vinegar to the
bride as she sat in her palanquin; she then held a heated rod in the vinegar till it seethed.
The bride then walked ceremonially round her palanquin and entered her future home: in
this way, it was hoped, she would never be troubled by feelings of jealousy.
But when someone has a fishbone stuck in his or her throat, a popular remedy is to
make the sufferer drink vinegar (or ‘eat’ vinegar, as the Chinese say: the verb chi = to eat
is used with tea, wine, etc.).