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

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Zhao Gao should be pronounced Jow Gow. Hu Hai should be pronounced Who Hi. Fu Su should be pronounced Foo Soo. Chapter 9 Xiang Yu should be pronounced Shiang Yu. Liu Bang should be pronounced Liu Baang. Chapter 10 Zhang Han should be pronounced Jaang Haan. Chapter 11 Fan Kuai should be pronounced Faan Kwai. Sima Xin should be pronounced Sima Sheen. Chapter 12 Xiao He should be pronounced Shiao Huh. Chapter 14 Hahn Xin should be pronounced Hahn Shin. Chapter 16 Kuai Tung should be pronounced Kwai Tung.

      

      Unlike the western world, Chinese surnames are pronounced first, to be followed by the given names. For instance, my maiden surname is Yen

and my given name is Junling
. Thus my Chinese name is Yen Junling
.

      My husband Bob’s surname is Mah

. When I married Bob, my Chinese name became Mah Yen Junling
, whereas my English name became Adeline Yen Mah.

      In a similar vein, Deng Xiaoping’s surname was Deng

. His given name was Xiaoping
.

      Mao Zedong’s surname was Mao

, and his given name was Zedong
.

      Sima Qian’s surname was Sima

, and his given name was Qian
.

      The word Haan

in the state of Haan
during the Warring States period is the same character as the surname of General-in-chief Hahn
Xin
. The word Han
in Han dynasty
is an entirely different word from the other two. However, all three are pronounced Han and are spelt identically as Han in the Chinese-English Pinyin dictionary and in history books. To distinguish them and avoid confusion, I have chosen to spell them differently in this book.

State of Haan =
Haan
General Hahn Xin =
Hahn
Han dynasty =
Han

       Preface

      As a little girl in Shanghai, I remember coming home from school in the afternoons and running up the stairs. The first thing I did was to dash into my grandfather Ye Ye’s room to see what he was doing. His room was next to the one I shared with my Aunt Baba, Father’s older sister. When he was in a good mood, he would be practising calligraphy and humming a tune from Beijing opera.

      One day I asked him, ‘Ye Ye, what are these words that you are writing?’

      ‘They are proverbs.’

      ‘Why do you write proverbs when you practise calligraphy?’

      He rested his brush on his inkstand and looked at me. ‘That is an excellent question!’ he answered. ‘Tell me, what is a proverb?’

      ‘A wise saying.’

      ‘Where do proverbs come from?’

      ‘I don’t know.’

      ‘The best proverbs come from our history. History describes the behaviour of people who lived in the past. Those people were our ancestors. We Chinese probably revere our ancestors and our history more than any other race. To us, history is not only a record of what has happened before. It is also a guide to educate children like yourself, giving you examples that will teach you how to live your life. Proverbs mirror the past to benefit the present.

      ‘Now, do you recognise the four characters that I am practising today? If you do, you can have a choice: a piece of candy from my jar or the legend behind these four words.’

      With some difficulty, I read aloud the four characters, jiu niu yi mao (loss of one hair from nine oxen).

      Ye Ye was delighted! ‘Since I’ve never told you stories from history before, today you get both the story and the candy. But only today! From now on, you’ll have to choose between the two.’

      I nodded eagerly, sat on the floor by his chair and put the candy in my mouth as he began. The narrative he related was so fascinating that, despite my greed, I soon forgot about the candy. From then on, I often chose to listen rather than satisfy my longing for sweets.

      My Ye Ye passed away many years ago, but his proverbs and the history behind them have remained in my mind. On one of the last occasions we were together, he said to me, ‘No matter what else people may steal from you, they will never be able to take the knowledge of these proverbs from your mind.’

      In this book, I would like to share my knowledge, as well as my love of proverbs, with you.

      When I first wrote the story of my Chinese family, I chose my grandfather’s favourite proverb for its title. Falling Leaves (return to their roots) is actually the second half of a couplet first published during the Song dynasty (AD 960–1279):

      Shu gao qian zhang Luo ye gui gen.

      Even if a tree reaches the height of ten thousand feet,

       Falling leaves return to their roots.

      Nowadays, the first half of the couplet is seldom used and only the second half is cited. ‘Falling leaves return to their roots’ symbolises the return of the wandering child to her ancestral home,

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