Page 77 - A Dictionary of Chinese Symbols BIG Book

A Dictionary of Chinese Symbols 70
birthday and name-giving ceremonies. The more sons a man had the better; and
some patriarchal prodigies in Chinese history who, we are told, had a hundred sons, are
held up as ideal exemplars. Thus, for example, Wen-wang, the founder of the Zhou
Dynasty (c. 1050 BC).
The preferential treatment of male issue emerges very clearly from a well-known
passage in the ‘Book of Odes’ (No. 189). The ‘Great Man’ (chief diviner) is asked to
interpret a dream: ‘Black bears and brown-and-white bears, they are good omens of sons;
snake-brood and snakes, they are omens of daughters. And so he bears sons; they lay
them on a bed, they dress them in skirts, they give them as toys (jang jades) jade insignia;
they cry shrilly; their red knee-covers will be brilliant, (they will be) rulers of hereditary
houses. And so he bears daughters; they lay them on the ground, they dress them in
wrappers, they give them as toys spinning-whorls …’ (Karlgren).
With the emancipation of women and their advance to equality with men in many
fields, such customs have vanished. The intense concern shown by parents in the
education of their sons survived much longer. ‘At least the first provincial examination!
Then the higher grade exams, at last the final examination in the capital! For two
thousand years, that was what parents aimed at for their sons. The examinations were the
steps that led to high office, to success, to respect from one’s fellows and often to wealth.
By taking these steps one could rise from the peasant and artisan classes, even from the
merchant class to the highest class in the land – that of the officials and scholars.’
A folk-print shows a hundred children playing with lotus flowers in a pond.
The inscription is ‘Wen-wang loved lotus’ (lien = lotus symbolises ‘lian’ = love).
A picture showing two children in adult clothing, one holding a lotus, the other holding a
little box, is a representation of the Heavenly Twins, the He-he (he = lotus, or
concord; he = small box, or concord): the He-he are the gods of conjugal felicity.
Two children standing smiling at each other express the wish ‘(May you) meet each other
in joy’, a metaphor for conjugal intercourse. Five children may be shown holding a
placard bearing the words ‘May five sons pass the examination.’ One often sees a picture
divided into two sections, each showing a woman with a son: one son holds a lotus in his
hand, the other is mounted on a unicorn. The picture expresses the wishes ‘May the
heavenly powers send you a son’ and ‘May the unicorn bring you a son.’ The wish ‘May

good luck, long life and children, all be (yours) in plenty’ is expressed by a picture
showing twelve children with pomegranates and peaches. A picture showing an
old man dressed as a child playing on the ground in front of an even older pair, is a
reference to Lao Lai-zi, one of the 24 ideal examples of filial piety ( xiao); he played
on the ground like a child in order to convince his parents that they were still young!
In Taoist literature, the child epitomises the ideal innocence of the holy sage,
absorbing all that it sees. A man who still owes his father money when the latter dies will
have a bad son, a son who will cost him the equivalent of the debt; conversely, a son who
is owed something by his father when the latter dies will have a duly filial son of his own.
In olden times it was believed that the songs that children sang on the streets at play
were manifestations of the supernatural. They were noted down and analysed and
political decisions might be taken in the light of deductions therefrom.