by Han Shaogong
A note about the translation
When I first wrote to Han Shaogong asking for his permission to translate A Dictionary ofMaqiao, I received a friendly but slightly bemused response. "I am very happy that you wish to translate the book, but I'm afraid it will be terribly difficult." He probably thought I was mad even to have suggested translating a book written in Chinese, about the language of one tiny corner of southern China, into English.
I plunged on regardless and, for the most part, I have translated the novel in its entirety, from the 1997 Shanghai wenyi chubanshe edition. There are, however, five entries from the novel that I deemed to be so heavily dependent in the Chinese original on puns between dialect and Mandarin Chinese as to make extensive and distracting linguistic explanations necessary in English. I therefore decided, with the author's permission, to omit from my translation the following entries: "Bayuan"; "Lian xiang"; "Liu shi"; "Po nao"; "Xian"; and the final paragraph of the entry "Reincarnation."
On the theme of dictionaries, the reader will find an alphabetically arranged glossary at the end of the book to explain any possibly unfamiliar terms that occur in the text. I have included also a list of principal characters and a guide to pronunciation of Chinese words.
– Julia Lovell
Guide to Pronunciation of Transliterated Chinese
According to the pinyin system, transliterated Chinese is pronounced as in English, except for the following:
vowels:
a (as the only letter following a consonant): a as in after
ai: I (or eye)
ao: ow as in how
e: uh
ei: ay as in say
en: on as in lemon
eng: ung as in sung
i (as the only letter following most consonants): e as in me
i (when following c, ch, s, sh, zh, z): er as in driver
ia: yah
ian: yen
ie: yeah
iu: yo as in yo-yo
o: o as in fork
ong: oong
ou: o as in no
u (when following most consonants): oo as in food
u (when following j, q, x, y): u as the German (i
ua: wah
uai: why
uan: wu-an
uang: wu-ang
ui: way
uo: u-who
yan: yen
yi: ee as in feed
consonants:
c: ts as in its
g: g as in good
q: ch as in chat
x: sh as in she
z: ds as in folds
zh: j as in job
Editorial Note [2]
Producing the dictionary of a village has been a somewhat experimental undertaking for us.
We received this offering from the dictionary's compiler, Han Shaogong, a renowned gentleman of letters whose oeuvre includes "Homecoming," "Dadada," "Womanwomanwoman," and a host of other hugely influential works, and whose mighty skills in penmanship extend to both fiction and essays; not, however, to dictionaries. But having considered the specialized content of this dictionary, as well as the opportunity that a lexicon affords for exploration and discussion, we encouraged his brave experiment and permitted him to retain his own distinctive literary style within the work.
To clarify for the reader:
1. The compiler originally arranged the entries in alphabetical order. In order to make it easier for readers to grasp the narrative thread and to increase the readability of the novel, the entries were rearranged into their present order. The original index of headings (presented in the "List of Entries" which follows this section), however, was retained to make the book easier to consult.
2. Each word has a certain geographical range. If the symbol *' appears before an entry, it means use of the word is not limited to Maqiao. Conversely, if the symbol * appears before an entry, it means that use of the word is limited to Maqiao, or even that it is used only by one individual in Maqiao.
3. For ease of reading, the author has used as little dialect as possible in the definitions. However, this should not prevent interested readers from using the knowledge of dialect this book provides by mentally replacing corresponding words in definitions with dialect as they read. In so doing, a reader can get even closer to the original feel of life in Maqiao.
List of Entries [3]
Agreed-Ma
Army Mosquito
Asking Books
Asleep
Awakened
Bandit Ma (and 1948)
Bandit Ma (continued)
Barbarian Parts
Beginning (End)
Born-to-the-Pen
Boss Hong
Bramble Gourd
Brutal
Bubbleskin (etc.)
Cheap
Clout
Colored Tea
Confucian
Curse-Grinding
Daoist Ritual
Dear Life
Delivering Songs
Democracy Cell (as Used by Convicts)
Dragon
Dragon (continued)
Dream-Woman
Eating (as Used in Springtime)
Flame
Floating Soul
Form
Ghost Relative, the
Gruel
He-Ground (and She-Field)
Hey-Eh Mouth
House of Immortals (and Lazybones)
Jasmine-Not-Jasmine
Jackal-Fiend
Knotted Grass Hoop
Kuiyuan
Lax
Lazy (as Used by Men)
Lettuce Jade
Ligelang
Light the Sky Red
Lion Dance
Little Big Brother (etc.)
Low (and X-Ray Glasses)
Luo River
Maple Demon
Maqiao Bow
Master Black
Master Black (continued)
Menstrual Holes
Model Worker (as Used on Fine Days)
Mouth-Ban (and Flip Your Feet)
Nailed Backs
Nine Pockets
1948 (continued)
Officials' Road
Old Chum
Old Forder
Old Man (etc.)
On the Take
Open Eyes
Placing the Pot
Precious
Precious (continued)
Presenting the Vine
Pressing Names
Public Family
Purple-Teeth Soil
Qingming Rain
Qoqo Man , the
Red Flower Daddy
Reincarnation
Resentment
Riding a Wheelbarrow
River
Root
Rough
Rude
Rude (continued)
Same Pot
Savages (and Savages of the Luo Clan)
Scarlet Woman
Scattered
Science
Separated-Pot Brothers
Speaking the Dao
Speech Rights
Spirit
Standing the Body
Stick(y)
Strange Talent
Streetsickness
Striking Red
Sweet
Taiwan
Third of the Third
This Him
Three-Hairs
Three Seconds
Tiananmen
Tincture of Iodine
Traitor to the Chinese
Uh
Vernacular/Empty Talk
Will/Willing
Yellow-Grass Miasma
Yellowskin
*River
: The word for river (jiang in Mandarin) is pronounced gangby Maqiao people (in southern China) and refers not just to vast bodies of water, but to all waterways, including small ditches and streams. In northern China, on the other hand, the word "sea" is used to cover everything from lakes to ponds, which must seem equally strange to southerners. Size, it appears, is something left for people to worry about later.
In English, difference in size can be expressed by "stream" or "river." Yet in French, fleuve refers to rivers entering the sea and riviere indicates an inland river or tributary entering another river, while size remains unspecified. It seems that the world contains many systems of naming, which do not necessarily relate to each other.
Although Maqiao people later on became more specific about size, they still didn't seem to attach much importance to it, only differentiating it slightly by tone. Gang pronounced in a high, level tone refers to a large river, and in a rising tone to a rivulet or stream; it takes some time for outsiders to attune their ears to avoid misunderstandings. As a newcomer to Maqiao, I ran into such difficulties myself when I went off in excited search of a river, following directions from locals. My destination turned out to be a gurgling brook so narrow I could reach the other side in one flying leap. Some dark waterweed lay within and watersnakes would flash by unannounced, but for washing or swimming it was of no use.
Rising-tone gang is very different from high-tone gang. Following this rising-tone gang for a stretch, I wandered alternately between torrents and calm, and then back to torrents. I felt myself scattering in pieces then coming together again, as if repeatedly lost, then found. When I came across an old herdsman, he said not to dismiss the river for its size-in the past, its water had been so oily it could be used to light lamps.
amp;Luo River
: Maqiao's water flowed into the Luo River, a good halfday's walk from the village. There was a little rowboat for crossing, and if the boatman wasn't there then people wanting to cross simply rowed themselves over. If the boatman was there, it cost five cents per person. He moored the rowboat on the opposite side, stuck the boat pole well into the ground, and stood on the bank taking each person's money, one by one, licking a finger to count each note.
Once he'd collected a good handful of notes, he tucked them in a tattered wool hat and pulled it firmly onto his head.
The cost of crossing the river remained the same whether in summer or winter. In fact, the river in summer was much wider, and the water much more turbulent. If it happened to be the flood season, the bottomless brown soup overflowed unstoppably, obscuring all reflections, expelling layer upon layer of mire onto the banks, along with sour-smelling piles of foam which the slow lapping of the water marooned on the shallow bends. But the worse the conditions became, the more people gathered on the riverbanks, patiently waiting for dead ducks, dead pigs, broken tables or old wooden pots, along with bamboo canes split off from bundles, to come bobbing along: fishing them out and taking them off home was called "making a flood fortune."
Of course, sometimes perhaps a woman or a child, swollen up into an enormous white flesh ball, would suddenly roll up out of the waves, their glazed stare scattering people, provoking cries of terror.
Some strong-stomached children would search out a long bamboo pole and amuse themselves by prodding at the flesh ball.
People at the riverbank also fished, by casting nets or with line and hook. Once, as I headed toward the bank, some women in front of me suddenly screeched in panic, turned, and ran-something, it would seem, had happened. When I took a more careful look at where they'd run from, I saw that all the men, old and young, carriers and herders, had stopped what they were doing, ripped off their pants, and run, stumbling, toward the river in a line of ten or more pairs of glistening buttocks, shouting at the tops of their voices. Only then did it occur to me that the muffled noise I had just heard was the sound of firecrackers. That is to say, firecrackers had been set off in the river to blast the fish. After the explosion, the men had pulled off their pants to go and hook the fish. Not wanting to get their pants wet, they hadn't foreseen that their spontaneously coordinated initiative would frighten anyone.
During my six years in Maqiao, I never had much to do with the Luo River, only crossing it when I happened to be walking to the county seat. Speaking of river crossing, five cents often seemed like a lot of money. None of the Educated Youth had much money and once the male students got together, a kind of resistance-hero-versus-Jap-devil-oppressors mentality set in: whenever we crossed the river, we always considered fare dodging. One Educated Youth, nicknamed Master Black, was particularly heroic when it came to this kind of stunt, and once, after getting onto the bank, he took on the role of Underground Worker Sacrificing Himself for the People-giving us a meaningful look, he told us to walk right on and that he'd pay for us all himself. He patted his right pocket, groped in his left pocket, and generally dragged his feet until he saw that we'd walked on a long way, when he snarled at the boatman that he didn't have any money, and even if he did he wouldn't hand it over, so what was he going to do about it? He then picked up his heels and ran. He fancied himself as something of a basketball player, and thought there was no way the old ferryman could catch him up. It turned out, though, that the issue of speed was irrelevant to the old man: shouldering an oar, he ran slowly and trailed further and further behind us, but he never stopped. He followed us for one It, two If, three It, four li… When finally we were staggering along, dripping with sweat, the tiny black dot far back in the distance still held on fast. Everyone truly believed that he would pursue us to the edge of heaven, brandishing the oar as he went, for as long as we hadn't paid him those thirty cents; short of us killing him, nothing else would persuade him to turn back. He wasn't half as clever as us and hadn't thought things through properly; not once did regret at abandoning his boat or the large crowd of customers waiting at the side of the river cross his mind.
There was nothing to be done but meekly gather together the money and send Master Black back to avoid trouble in the future. In the distance, I glimpsed the old man actually giving Master Black his change, his mouth making big open and shut movements, probably to swear at him, but as he was standing against the wind, not a single word reached us.
I never saw the old man again. When the movement to purge counterrevolutionaries began, a pistol in our possession became the target of investigation. We'd got hold of the pistol while waging Cultural Revolution in the city. After the bullets had all been used up, we were loath to give it up, and secretly brought it down to the countryside. When things got tense later on, we were afraid we'd be hauled up on a charge of hoarding weapons, so Master Black dropped it in the river as he crossed and we agreed amongst ourselves to keep our mouths shut. Even now I'm still not sure how the whole business came out into the open. I'm just sorry that we were too clever for our own good, that we reckoned losing it in the river would be the tidiest solution. We hadn't realized that until the authorities found the gun, the case simply couldn't be closed; in fact, they even suspected we were still secretly harboring this gun with intentions of our own. We endured endless grillings and interrogations until winter came and the water of the Luo River crept back, exposing a large stretch of sandy bank. Clutching rakes, we dug deep and sifted meticulously over the place where we'd dropped the gun, determined to excavate our innocence. We dug in the riverbank for a full five days, covering an ever-widening area. Lashed by winds that bit into our bones, we dug over almost the entire Good Earth of the People's Commune, but never heard the clunk of rake on metal.
There was no way such a heavy gun could have been swept away by the current. Neither was there any way anyone could have taken it away, sunk beneath the water as it was. Strange-where could it have gone?
I could only suspect that this strange river harbored ill feeling toward us for some unknown reason, and was determined to have us locked up.
Only then did we sense its
mystery, only then, for the first time, did we size it up properly. It was strewn with the winter's first snow, reflecting a piercing white glow, like a sudden bolt of lightning that had illuminated the world, then petrified for eternity. On the riverbank was a track of light footprints, which had alarmed a few waterbirds into flight. Sometimes they merged into the icy background so that people had no way of differentiating the two, sometimes emerged from nowhere, a few white threads breaking up the dark green surface of the narrow water-way. As I stood in the path of this eternal streak of lightning, tears sprang uncontrollably to my eyes.
There was hardly anyone crossing the river. The boatman was no longer the old guy from before, it was now someone middle-aged, quite a bit younger, who squatted for a while on the riverbank with his hands in his sleeves, then headed home.
I suddenly spun around, but the bank was still empty.
*Savages (and Savages of the Luo Clan)
: In Mandarin Chinese, sturdy young men are also known as hanzi (lads). In Maqiao, men are more often called savages, or "savages of the three clans." I haven't been able to ascertain the origins of this "three clans." The ancients had a saying: "although there are only three clans in Chu, the Chu must extinguish the Qin"; it seems the "three clans" of this saying don't just refer to men.
