Walt Whitman once said that ‘Into the English language are woven the sorrows, joys, loves, needs and heartbreaks of the common people’. The same can be said regarding Chinese proverbs and metaphors.
Whereas Shakespeare has been hailed for the last four hundred years by most English-speaking people as the greatest English writer who ever lived, very few westerners have heard of Sima Qian (145–90 BC), a Chinese historian who lived during the Han dynasty. In his lifetime he wrote only one book, a book of history called Shiji (Historical Record). Published a few decades after his death, Shiji has been a best-seller in China since that time and is still in print. Many Chinese feel that it is the greatest book ever written. Its influence on Chinese thought has been immense throughout the last two millennia. Many of the proverbs we use today came from this ancient tome.
Westerners, too, have been captivated by the charm of Chinese proverbs. When I was a medical intern at the London Hospital in the 1960s, I had the privilege of looking after the renowned British poet Philip Larkin.* He once described Chinese proverbs as ‘white dwarfs’ of literature because each was so densely compacted with thoughts and ideas. He told me that ‘white dwarfs’ were tiny stars whose atoms were packed so closely together that their weight was huge compared to their size. He said that the enormous heat radiated by these small stars was like the vast knowledge and profound wisdom contained in these compact sayings gleaned from China.
Recently, as I was reading an American book, Who Moved My Cheese by Spencer Johnson, my husband Bob pointed out that the message it contained is essentially the same as one stated over two thousand years ago by Li Si, the man who eventually became Prime Minister to the First Emperor of China.
As a young man, Li Si worked as a petty clerk in his district. In the lavatory attached to his office, he observed numerous scrawny rats lurking around and eating the excrement, but they would scurry off at the first approach of man or dog. Visiting the granary one day, he noticed that the rats there were not only sleek and fat, but were calmly helping themselves to the sacks of grain. They squatted comfortably beneath the galleries and hardly stirred when disturbed. Thereupon he sighed and thought to himself, ‘A man’s ability or lack of ability resembles the behaviour of these rats. Everything depends on where he locates himself.’
The point made by the American writer is the same as that mentioned by the Chinese clerk: a person must be willing to move to another location in response to change. Otherwise the cheese (or grain) will run out regardless of one’s ability.
Most Chinese are proud of their country’s long history. While doing research on the origin of proverbs, I came to realise that many of them came from the pen of one man: the brilliant Han dynasty historian Sima Qian, who wrote his seminal book Shiji (Historical Record) some two thousand years ago.
Here I have chosen a few commonly used proverbs gleaned from the writings of Sima Qian, combined them with my personal reflections, and related the history behind them to provide a window into the Chinese mind. I hope you will find them as fascinating as I did when I first heard them from my Ye Ye all those many years ago.
* See Watching the Tree.
Loss of One Hair from Nine Oxen
WHEN I WAS THIRTEEN YEARS OLD, my parents told me that I was to leave school at fourteen and get a job because they no longer wished to pay for my education. Desperate to go to university, I begged my grandfather Ye Ye to intercede on my behalf. One evening after dinner, on one of my rare visits home from boarding school, Ye Ye cornered Father and they had a private conversation. Afterwards, Ye Ye related that Father had been unsympathetic. Further schooling would only strain their budget because a daughter should never be too well educated. It would spoil any slim chance I might have of making a suitable marriage. ‘No sane man’, according to Father, ‘would ever want a bride with a Ph.D.’ Therefore, as far as he and my stepmother were concerned, my education was a matter as trivial as jiu niu yi mao (the loss of one hair from nine oxen). They had made their decision and the subject was closed.
‘Loss of one hair from nine oxen’ is a phrase taken from a poignant letter written by the historian Sima Qian to his friend Ren An in 93 BC, three years before Sima Qian’s death.
Sima Qian (145–90 BC) was the taishi (‘Grand Minister of History’ or ‘Grand Historian’) during the reign of Emperor Wu of the early Han dynasty (157–87 BC, ruled from 141–87 BC). He was responsible not only for keeping historical records, but also for regulating the calendar and doing research on astronomy. Such positions were handed from father to son and the Sima family had been Grand Historians for many generations. Sima Qian’s father, Sima Tan, had also been Grand Minister of History. Even as a boy, Sima Qian was groomed to step into his father’s shoes one day.
It had been Sima Tan’s dream to write a comprehensive history of China. With that in mind, he collected many ancient tales and historical writings and shared them with his son. He encouraged the young Sima Qian to embark on three separate journeys to explore the length and breadth of China. There is evidence that, in travels similar to those of the Greek historian-traveller Herodotus with whom he has often been compared, Sima Qian reached the Kundong Mountains of Gansu province in the west, the battlegrounds of Julu in Hebei province in the north, Confucius’s birthplace of Qufu in Shandong province in the east and the Yangtze river in the south. While lying on his deathbed in 110 BC, Sima Tan extracted a promise from his son that he would one day realise his father’s unfulfilled dream of writing a comprehensive history of China.
Sima Qian was appointed Grand Minister of History in 107 BC. Two years later, he finally assembled sufficient material to begin the laborious writing process. In those days, paper had not yet been invented, so characters were written with a brush or carved vertically with a knife on to narrow strips of bamboo or wood. Unfortunately, soon after Sima Qian began writing, disaster struck.
At that time, China was frequently troubled by raids from nomadic tribes (called Xiongnu or Huns), living in the desert areas north-west of China (present-day Mongolia). In retaliation, Emperor Wu would dispatch military expeditions into the desert to harass them. In 99 BC, the young, dashing and usually victorious Han commander Li Ling led a force of 5000 men in a daring raid deep into enemy territory in an attempt to capture the Hun ruler. Vastly outnumbered, Li Ling was defeated and finally surrendered after he ran out of food and arrows. On hearing this, Emperor Wu became furious. In the case of defeat, the monarch expected his military officers either to die in battle or commit suicide to avoid capture. Surrendering to the enemy was considered cowardly and despicable. He proposed punishing Li Ling by confiscating his property and imposing death sentences on his family members to the third degree (parents, siblings, wife and children).
Sima Qian, who knew and admired Li Ling, tried to defend him in court. By doing so, he enraged Emperor Wu even further. The monarch first cast Sima Qian into prison for daring to speak up on behalf of a ‘traitor’, then, a year later, he accused the historian of attempting to deceive him and sentenced him to death. In those days, it was possible for disgraced officials either to buy their way out of their death penalty or to submit voluntarily to castration. For those with insufficient funds, tradition dictated that death