Dear Ming, SL, Alfred, Stephen,Julian, Rudy & Friends

I am trying to find the full Chinese text of Kong Que Dong Nan Fei (The Peacocks Fly South-East) 孔雀東南飛. I have seen a Shaoxing film of the story and read Arthur Waley's translation of this moving and sad tale of the maiden, Liu Lanzhi 劉蘭芝, hounded and pressurised to leave the husband, Jiao Zhongqing 蕉仲卿 by his mother. The ballad is one of two famous Northen Dynasty (Jin Dynasty 3rd to 5th century AD)) yue fu 樂府 or folk songs (called twin jades 雙璧). The other ballad of the twin jade is Mulan, which is so-well known that CTB has a full section.

I think Liu Lanzhi is as great a heroine as Mulan, for bearing her sufferings and final sacrifice for a man who loved her but signed the paper out of respect to his mother to remove her from matrimony and thus casting her into shame. She was not only faithful but well educated and house-trained: "at thirteen I knew how to weave silk, at fourteen I learnt to make clothes, at fifteen I could play the small lute, at sixteen I knew the Songs and Books, at seventeen I was made your wife". The story paralleled that of the famous Song poet Lu You and his wife Tang Wan, in that their marriage was dissolved by a vicious mother-in-law.

Liu Lanzhi was sought after by other men, but decided to end her life by drowning. The repentant Jiao Zhongqing then hanged himself from a tree. Both were buried together, where two trees grew and a pair of yuan yang 鴛鴦, Mandarin ducks, (sorry Ming, I know you think the Mandarin ducks do not do justice to the beautiful birds), sang every night to the fifth watch. It should be a great movie, an even better tear jerker than the famous Butterfly Lovers, Liang Shanbo and Zhu Yingtai.

I wonder why the Peacocks (implying the lovers) fly south-east. Do the Chinese consider south-east as a repository of their souls? Also, were the two Chinese love birds, yuan yang, a symbol of their re-incarnation?

Tin-Kay

The browser has built-in capability to read Chinese [both GB and BIG5], without buying additional software from other companies. You can view Chinese online.

The software is free can be downloaded from the Microsoft site. For detail installation instruction, click on button in the Home Page.

With wide-band DSL or cable connection, download time is a few minutes. With dial-up modem (56k), it may take 2 hours or more. If you already have version 5.0, and you have a slow connection, it's not worthwhile to upgrade. Otherwise, upgraded version has improved security.

Our policy is not to respond to requests privately by email.

You should click on "Tattoo" from the Home Page to learn more. Or, go directly to www.zhongwen.com/qianming.htm and see your name written in Chinese.

aolung. 奧龍

http://www.fa-kuan.muc.de
Traces of Butterflies' Dreams - 蝶夢痕 "Tieh Meng Hen"
My Poetry

Ming is right on that Chinese checker is like French fries and Hamburger, it has nothing to do with the geographic pointer.

The popular game Chinese Checkers was "invented" by a German game company called Ravensburger. They had a patent on it issued around 1880. It was based on the older game invented in England called Helma. But this company renamed it as the "Chinese Checkers", a stroke of advertising genius comparable to that of the Monopoly game.
The game is not nearly unknown in China, and is called, as pointed by S.L., simply as "Jumping Chess."

Chess on the othter hand, as a much longer history. It dates back thousands of years and was played in Middle East and Europe, but never in Asia. For some history of this game, (which certainly cannot be called 'American chess' as you suggest) read the page
www.triplejump.net/history.shtml

So you see, Chinese did not invent everything under the Sun.

You raised a very intersting topic. There is probably no real map about the east Zhou period that covers southeast Asia, but there are maps for ancient China found in the following link:
http://geog.hkbu.edu.hk/GEOG1150/Chinese/index.html
East Zhou which was mostly active in the Yellow River area. This is mainly based on the archaeological sites distribution. This does not mean the other part of the current China was uninhabited or uncilivized though. There are more and more evidence of multiple civilization centers existing concurrently during that time. These centers eventually merged to form the Chinese people and nation (Zhonghua Minzu and Zhonghua). One is in Sichuan called Sanxingdui. The other in Hongkong dated around Han dynasty. Obviously there are a lot more that are waiting to be discovered.

Min (Fujian) was part of a large area called "the Hundred Yues" spanning from Zhejiang along the coast to Vietnam. The area was called Min Yue. Because of the mountainous terrain in this area, transportation and communication with the outside was difficult. Their culture thus remains preserved rather intact from the ancient times without much intereaction with the outside. Min in fact is divided into North Min and South Min, each speaking a different dialect, yet they are only some 100 miles or less apart. There have been recently a lot of immigrants to New York City. They are the North Min people from the Fuzhou area. The Taiwanese people are mostly from the South Min.

I believe the Vietnamese people originally lived in Gaungdong province and were driven to the Vietnam area during all the civil wars. To date there are many Cantonese people in Vietnam and the language in Guangxi is close to Vietnamese. Viet is the same word as Yue in Chinese character.

The history of Chinese civilization is now moved back about 2000 years to around 5000 BC. From the discovery of bone flutes in Henan province, we know that they already have a very advanced knowledge of music with perfect scales like we have today. (see earlier discussion on the scientific paper published in Nature magazine). There may yet be more evidence to move the timeline back further in the future. ARchaeology in China is a fascinating science and art that keep surprising us everyday. We have discussed quite a few topics of recent findings in this forum. You may need to go back and dig them out. If you read Chinese there is a very good site that reports on the archaeology news in China.
http://www.east.net.cn/culture
http://www.east.cn.net/culture/feichang/feichang.htm
You can also go to my Hakka website which has many links on Chinese culture: http://www.asiawind.com/hakka/china.htm

The Chinese call "Chinese checker" by the name "TiaoQi" (jumping boardgame). It is a board with six-side star played by 2-6 people. There are two different kinds of rules. 1)You only jump over a piece immediately next to yours and if there is one space beyond the piece you jump over (exactly like the American checker); 2) You can jump over a piece with empty slots between as long as the spaces before and beyond the piece you jump over is the same and the number of jumps is infinite, including jumping and staying in other players' home territories. Rule (2) is a lot more fun and you can see the confusion when 6 people are playing. The pieces are either marbles or pegs(good for travelling in cars). The Chinese checker is more challenging than checker if Rule 2 is applied. It is a game that even 6-year-olds can play.

I now see what your problem (and mine too) is. This web site is dedicated to (a) people who know little about China, and (b) those who are Scholars. So it is easy to end up with the wrong page.

It is NOT necessary to install Chinese software, or learn Chinese first. May I suggest that you start here. It will not be as easy as watching TV, but with a bit of concentration, you will get to the other side of the earth!

You opened your inqueries by saying that you knew more about the moon surface than China. Wonder how you acquire the knowledge about the moon. Did you ask questions in other forums like you did here? I don't think so. Use the same attitude and vigor to pursue knowledge about China as you did about the surface of the moon. You might learn something.... unless your knowledge about the moon surface stops at empty holes.

You ask a lot of questions without taking time to do a little reading first. There are more than 3,000 pages of information right here. Spend a few hours studying!

How do you feel if someone asks you all these questions about the United States? Who was the first president? When was the first railroad built? What..? What..? What..? Can you find American food in Europe?

We like to help, Aaron, but do not expect us to be your private tutor!

Su Dongpo, feeling very peaceful in body and mind, asked the Chan Master, "Chan Master, what do I look like sitting here?"

Chan Master Foyin: "You look magnificent, just like a Buddha! "

Chan Master: "Sir, what do I look like to you?"

Su Dongpo, who never let an opportunity to tease the Chan Master go by, immediately said, "You look like a piece of turd! "

When the Chan Master did not respond to his comment, Su Dongpo thought he had won the exchange. After he returned he told everyone what had happened, saying: "I won today."

His little sister: "Brother, how did you win?" Su Dongpo told her the whole story.

His little sister said, "Brother, you lost! The Chan Master had a Buddha in his mind, so he saw you as a Buddha. You have dried excrement in your mind, so you saw the Chan Master as a piece of turd! "
Su Dongpo was speechless. He realized that his Chan skill was still not up to par with Chan Master Foyin's.

May I suggest that you undertake some readings on you own instead. As a start, go to www.chinapage.org/english-chinese.html and explore from there.

.aulun. 奧龍

http://www.fa-kuan.muc.de
Traces of Butterflies' Dreams - 蝶夢痕 "Tieh Meng Hen"
My Poetry

I hope you don't mind for my posting your surname here. If you have any comment please do not hesitate to point out the mistakes otherwise the history of surname Pei will be published as it is in my book 'The Origin of Chinese Surnames".

Surname No.197 PEI (裴)
Pei means : long sleeve; a Chinese surname.
The surname Pei is about 2600 years old.

In 909BC Ji Bi Fang (姬辟方) was crowned Zhou King Xiao (周孝王), the eighth King of the Zhou Dynasty (周朝 1134BC to 256BC). Zhou King Xiao reigned until 894BC. Zhou King Xiao ordered Shen Hou (申侯) to suppressed the western nomadic tribe of Xi Rong (西戎) who lived in the present day of western part of Shaanxi province (陜西省).

After the terroritory was fully under the jurisdiction of the Zhou Dynasty, in 897BC Zhou King Xiao appointed a man named Fei Zi (非子), who was excelled in breeding stud-horses to take over the leadership of the region which was in the west of the Zhou capital of Hao (鎬 present day Xi An 西安 city in Shaanxi province). Fei Zi's mission was to breed stud-horses for the Zhou Court. Zhou King Xiao bestowed upon Fei Zi the surname of Ying (嬴)

In 777BC Ying Kai (嬴開) a 6th generation descendant of Fei Zi was honoured with the title of Bo (伯) or Earl by Zhou King You (周幽王) who reigned from 781BC to 771BC). Zhou King You also renamed the region State of Qin (秦國 present day Feng Xiang county 鳳翔縣 in Shaanxi province). Ying Kai, the ruler of Qin, was known as Qin Bo (秦伯) or the Earl of Qin.

In 771BC the tribe of Xi Rong attacked the Zhou capital. In no time the capital was overrun by the westerners. Zhou King You was killed the turmoil. The capital was razed to the ground

Ji Yi Jiu (姬宜臼), the crown prince, who was in the State of Shen (申國) at that time, congregated an army from several vassal States. They marched west to rescue the capital Hao. Togehtered, the combined forces pushed the Xi Rong out of the capital and had them driven back to the desert where they belonged.

Ji Yi Jiu ascended to the throne as Zhou King Ping (周平王) who shifted his capital to Cheng Zhou (成周 present day Luo Yang 洛陽 city in Henan province 河南省) as the destroyed capital was uninhabitable. This was what the beginning of the period of Easter Zhou Dynasty (東周朝).

One of the vassal States which sent troops to help Ji Yi Jian to expel the Xi Rong was the State of Qin. In appreciation of his assistance Zhou King Ping promoted the ruler of Qin, Ying Kai, to the title of Hou (侯爵).

During the Spring and Autumn Period (春秋時代 722BC to 481BC) the State of Qin had conquered and annexed many small States. Within a decades Qin had become a very power State in the land.

In 715BC Ying Jing (嬴靜), the grandson of Ying Kai was installed as the ruler of the State of Qin. Ying Jing ruled Qin until 704BC. He appointed one of his sons to administer a walled city called Pei (裴 present day Pei city in the county of Wen Xi county 聞喜縣 in Shanxi province 山西省) and he was known as Lord Pei (裴君). His offspring adopted PEI as their surname.

Surnames Ying (嬴), Qin (秦), Zhao (趙) and Pei (裴) came from the same ancestor Fei Zi (非子).

The surname Pei originated in an area referred to during the Qin Dynasty (秦朝 221BC to 207BC) as He Dong prefecture (河東郡). The present day location of He Dong prefecture is in Xia county 夏縣 of Shanxi province.

The couplet of surname Pei is: 裴姓的對聯是:

衣錦榮歸光故里﹔
非異人任在吾身。

I have posted this a couple of years ago. Every Chinese should know about it, but surprisingly few do.

The English name China should be pronounced as French Chine ("Cheena"), which really came from the word Qin. Chinese should be called Qin ren rather than Han ren, because Qin was the first unified China and was the first China known to the west through communication via the Silk Road. Qin was the beginning of a magnificent idea - a unified nation. However, it was discredited by Han, which had a much longer reign and influence.

I visited your interesting site.
A small point: The line "Hou sav is your connection?" should be "How safe ... "

Some of the tones are not quite right, but I can guess the following is the original verse:

baak6 sek6 baak6 yau6 waat6 白石白又滑
bun1 loi4 baak6 sek6 daap3 baak6 taap3 搬來白石搭白塔
baak6 sek6 taap6 baak6 sek6 daap6 白石塔白石搭
baak6 sek6 daap6 baak6 taap6 白石搭白塔
daap6 hou2 baak6 sek6 taap6 搭好白石塔
baak6 taap6 baak6 yau6 waat6 白塔白又滑
yap6 sat6 yim6 sat1 gam6 gan2 gap1 jai3 ？？？(This doesn't belong to the same verse??)

sorry, but can't give you the character text of that *Cantonese* tongue twister, I just had its English/German translation - something with white pagodas and smooth stones. Just thought Julian, SL or Rudy would like it ;-) But here is the URL for it and lots more: http://www.uebersetzung.at/twister/fr.htm - this being the French one, but you'll find almost all languages of the globe! Really nice! Recently, I contributed some character texts, audio files and some other tongue twisters there.

Have fun!

Alfred 奧龍

http://www.fa-kuan.muc.de
Traces of Butterflies' Dreams - 蝶夢痕 "Tieh Meng Hen"
My Poetry

Dear Alfred

Thanks for your tongue-twisters on Mother, Grape and Basin.

Can you give the Chinese text and the dialect for:

baak6 sek6 baak6 yau6 waat6
bun1 loi4 baak6 sek6 daap3 baak6 taap3
baak6 sek6 taap6 baak6 sek6 daap6
baak6 sek6 daap6 baak6 taap6
daap6 hou2 baak6 sek6 taap6

baak6 taap6 baak6 yau6 waat6

yap6 sat6 yim6 sat1 gam6 gan2 gap1 jai3

Tin-Kay