A Thousand Pieces of Gold: A Memoir of China’s Past Through its Proverbs - Adeline Mah Yen

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       One Written Word is Worth

      A Thousand Pieces of Gold

      ADELINE YEN MAH

      

      Dedicated to my husband Bob,

       who knows me better than I know myself (zhi ji) and makes everything worthwhile.

      CONTENTS

       7 Burning Books and Burying Scholars

       8 Words that Would Cause a Nation to Perish

       9 Pointing to a Deer and Calling it a Horse

       10 Little Sparrows with Dreams of Swans

       11 Destroy the Cooking Cauldrons and Sink the Boats

       12 This Young Man is Worth Educating

       13 Banquet at Wild Goose Gate

       14 Dressed in the Finest Brocades to Parade in the Dark of Night

       15 Plot to Sow Discord and Create Enmity

       16 The Heart of the People Belongs to Han

       17 The Human Heart is Difficult to Fathom

      18 Devising Strategies in a Command Tent

       List of Proverbs

       Index

       Acknowledgements

       About the Author

       Also by Adeline Yen Mah

       Copyright

       About the Publisher

       Note on Pronunciation

      Chinese is a pictorial, not a phonetic, language. Words are pronounced differently in different provinces, even though they are written in the same way and have the same meaning. This was true even during the time of the Warring States (475–221 BC). The historian Sima Qian began the biography of the assassin Jing Ke with these words: ‘Jing Ke was born in the state of Wei [present-day Henan province]. The natives of Wei pronounced his name Master Qing, but those from the state of Yan called him Master Jing.’

      After the Communists conquered China in 1949, they standardised the phonetic spelling of Chinese characters throughout China according to the Beijing dialect, or Mandarin, and called it Pinyin. Pinyin is defined as the phonetic, alphabetic spelling of Chinese writing.

      I would like to introduce a few famous figures from Chinese history to western readers using Pinyin. This is not an exhaustive list of all the names that appear in this book, of course, but it gives an overall flavour of how Chinese names are pronounced.

Preface Deng Xiaoping should be pronounced Dung Shiaoping because the letter X is pronounced SH in Pinyin.
Zhuangzi should be pronounced Jwaang Tze because the letters Zh are pronounced J in Pinyin.
Li Si should be pronounced Lee Si because Li is pronounced Lee.
King Zheng should be pronounced King Jung.
Qin should be pronounced Chin because the letter Q is pronounced Ch.
Zhao should be pronounced Jow.
Qi should be pronounced Chee.
Chapter 1 Sima Qian should be pronounced Sima Chien.
Ren should be pronounced Run because en is pronounced un in Pinyin.
Zhou dynasty should be pronounced Jo dynasty.
Qin Shi Huangdi should be pronounced Chin Shi Hwangdee.
Chapter 2 Zhong Kui should be pronounced Jong Kwei.
Chapter 3 Xi should be pronounced She.
Chapter 5 Han Feizi should be pronounced Haan Fay Tze.
Jiang Qing should be pronounced Jiang Ching.
Chapter 7 Xu Fu should be pronounced Shü Foo.
Zhang Liang should be pronounced Jaan Liang.
Meng Tian should be pronounced Mung Tien.
Chapter 8 Meng Yi

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