Page 80 - A Dictionary of Chinese Symbols BIG Book

A-Z 73

Chrysanthemum growing on the rocks

And another of the great lyric poets, Tu Mu, sings of the 9th month festivities as follows:

Put chrysanthemums in your hair! You must be blossom-bedecked when you accompany
me home.

The chrysanthemum is often depicted along with other natural symbols – e.g. the pine-

tree, in the combination known as song ju you cun. This group expresses the wish that the
recipient of the picture may have a long life. In Tao Yuan-ming’s poem ‘Returning
Home’ we find the words:

Pine-tree and chrysanthemum outlast (all things): (may you do likewise).

A wish that the recipient of the picture may continue for a long time (jiu) to occupy
high official rank (guan) is expressed by a grasshopper sitting on a chrysanthemum; in
North China, the word for ‘grasshopper’ is pronounced gua.r, which makes it
phonetically close to guan. Of similar import is a picture showing the chrysanthemum
with nine quails: jiu shi tong ju = ‘may nine generations live under one roof in peace’.
The Chinese word for the quail is an-chun, which can be taken as a phonetic reference to
an = peace. The word meaning ‘peacefully’ is suppressed in the interests of maintaining
the four-character structure of the saying: the reference to ‘peace’ then emerges from the
phonetic echo in the first syllable of the word for ‘quail’ alone.