Page 68 - A Dictionary of Chinese Symbols BIG Book

A-Z 61
Camellia

shan-cha

In translations from Chinese into Western languages, one sometimes comes across the
expression ‘wild tea’ or its equivalent: literally translated, the two Chinese characters
given above mean ‘mountain tea’. This is actually the Chinese name of the camellia.
The flower plays a rather minor role in Chinese literature. Among the Hakka, a minority
people in South China who live mainly in mountain areas and grow a lot of tea, the words
shan-cha hua = ‘mountain-tea-flower’ are used to describe a fresh, young girl.

Candles Candles

la-zhu

Wax candles have been in use in China for over two thousand years. An 8th-century text
mentions ‘coloured candles’ being used in marriage ceremonies. ‘Lighting the wax
candles’ is a metaphor for defloration of a virgin. The candle was also used, like the
incense stick, as a means of measuring a set period. One story tells how an Emperor kept
a scholar up so long one night that a whole wax candle burnt down. But the grateful
Emperor rewarded the scholar with a gold lotus candle. In the 5th century candles of wax
were, it seems, still very expensive, because an Emperor of the Southern Dynasty gave
the Emperor of the Toba ten candles as an imperial gift. ‘Hanging wax candles upside
down’ is a symbolic expression for a form of sexual intercourse.

Cannon

pao

In China, as in medieval Europe, cannon developed from catapults and similar engines of
warfare. In the middle of the 13th century the Chinese were firing ‘small bamboo canes’
filled with explosives at the Mongols. In the 16th century the Fu-lang-ji (the ‘Franks’,
i.e. the Spaniards) introduced more powerful cannon into China, and these were promptly
used against the non-Han peoples of South China. ‘Cannon’ is a common metaphor for
‘penis’.