Chinese Character Lesson - 莒
A few days ago I went to the police station to handle my household registration. The female officer looked down on me because I didn’t know the pronunciation of a certain Chinese character. Sigh, even though I’m not highly educated, I at least have a master’s degree — I’m part of the “intellectual class.” So I decided to write an educational article, which is also one of the university’s functions: “serving society.” Finally, this is popular (or vulgar) reading, not formal technical exposition — not suitable for serious citation…
My hometown is Junan County, Linyi City, Shandong Province.
Everyone knows Shandong — Confucius’s hometown, still influenced by feudal etiquette. Won’t go on, too much to say.
Fewer people know Linyi City. Maybe you know it by another name: “Yimeng Mountain Area.” Revolutionary old area, famous for fighting the Nationalists and Japanese. Usually such areas were backward “no-man’s lands” back then. Now, same. Historically produced Wang Xizhi and Zhuge Liang. Unfortunately, both left home at 18 like me to study and work elsewhere. Now Zhuge Liang’s故居 is “Nanyang Zhuge Hut” — he’s become a Henan native. Wang Xizhi is “from Shanyin’s Orchid Pavilion” — he’s become a native of Shaoxing, Zhejiang. All gone, all gone. If I ever make it big, please don’t say I’m Shanghainese…
Junan County — I bet nobody’s heard of it, and few can pronounce it. It’s not “Yingnan,” not “Lünan,” it’s “Ju-nan” (please don’t think of any male specific organic disease).
Now let’s talk about the character “莒.” It has a grass radical on top with two mouths below. The grass radical means it’s a plant. What plant? It’s actually “taro” — yes, the famous tribute “Lipu taro.” Apparently in ancient times, the Qi people called taro “莒” and loved eating it. Maybe one taro took exactly two mouthfuls to eat, hence the character. But nobody calls it that anymore — if you go to a restaurant and shout “Waiter, boil me a pot of 莒 to eat with sugar!”, they’ll think you’re crazy.
Later, this character stopped being used for plants and became a place name. During the Spring and Autumn period of the Zhou dynasty, there was a small vassal state near my home called “莒.” It belonged to the Eastern Yi barbarians — the original Confucian “honor the king and expel the barbarians” was precisely about expelling us. Although small, the Ju state lasted 300 years until the Warring States period when Chu destroyed it. Chu was from the Hubei area, traveling thousands of miles to destroy a small state in Shandong — truly moving. But after destroying it, it was too far to control, so Ju’s territory went to Qi.
Ju was too small for anyone to bother documenting in history. The only thing influencing modern life is a record in Confucius’s bestseller, the Analects:
Analects, Zilu:
Zi Xia became the steward of Jufu and asked about governance. Confucius said: “Don’t desire speed, don’t seek small gains. Haste makes waste; seeking small gains prevents great achievements.”
So the famous idiom “haste makes waste” has a connection to my hometown. Even now, this idiom is perfect for teaching the hot-tempered Shandong people. You can see Confucius really had the foresight of a sage, being able to educate his descendants 2000 years in advance. As for “don’t seek small gains,” I think that’s more suitable for teaching Shanghai people… But let’s not go there. Harmony, harmony.
Today, this character is basically only used as a place name. There’s Ju County and Junan County in Shandong. Taiwan supposedly has Juguang. That’s all I know. Ju County is roughly where the ancient Ju state was. Junan County is south of Ju. As for Taiwan’s Juguang — did they eat all the taro?
Conclusion: So in the future, when you see grass radical with two mouths, think “eating taro,” think “haste makes waste,” think “certain organic diseases,” and you won’t forget how to pronounce this character.