Review
There is no doubt that Chinese culture is profound and long-standing, and in the brilliant and splendid Chinese civilization, there are many special ways of expressing words, which are different from the expressions of any language, and few people can answer the reasons for these unique words.
What is precipitated by history always seems to be correct and not to be confused, but in the spirit of seeking truth from facts, today we will take you to understand why the mainland calls the purchase of goods "buying things" instead of "buying north and south."
What exactly is "stuff"
What is the thing that we often mention casually in our daily lives? Many people may say that things do not refer to objects, when we do not know the specific name of the object, we will say "this thing", and even when we scold people, we will say "it is really not a thing." It was as if the word thing had become a generic reference that could replace anything.
It is also true that the role of the word thing in Chinese is nothing more than to replace any kind of abstract or concrete person, thing, thing, can be described as an "all-round word." ”
So one might ask, why use things as pronouns instead of "north and south"? The same directional pronoun, the use of east and west in our daily life is obviously much higher than that of north and south. What are the reasons behind this?
Zhu Xi's question
Speaking of the reasons behind it, we have to mention a small folk story. It is said that there is a Great Southern Song Dynasty scholar Zhu Xi to teach his students, homework this kind of thing has been slightly boring since ancient times, students listen to listless, coupled with the hot weather, few people can focus on the classroom.
Coincidentally, at this time, the window outside the classroom passed by a young woman, graceful and beautiful, and the students in the class were quickly attracted to her. Zhu Xi could only smile helplessly when he saw such a situation, and at the same time asked on the donkey' slope: "Guess what she did?"
The students did not know how to answer, at this time one of the students replied to Zhu Xi: This sister is holding a basket in her hand, she should be going to the market to buy things. Zhu Xi admired the student's ability to observe, and then asked, "Do you know why this sister must have gone to buy something instead of buying Nanbei?" ”
Since ancient times, buying and selling objects has been called buying and selling things, and there is a reason for buying and selling north and south. But the gentleman seemed to be right to ask, and they really hadn't thought about why buying an object should be called a purchase. As a result, all the students fell into thought, and Zhu Xi was also amused by the cheerful classroom atmosphere.
Just when everyone was at a loss, a ten-year-old student suddenly stood up and reported to Zhu Xi that he knew the reason, and Zhu Xi was busy asking him to say, only to see the ten-year-old child sink into a deep breath and speak slowly
Gold, wood, water, fire, and earth are compatible, the five elements correspond to the five directions of the east, west, south, and north, and people use the same wooden basket as the sister when buying things, the south belongs to the fire, the north belongs to the water, and the water and fire in the wooden basket must not be contained, so it can only be used to install the east of the wood and the west of the gold.
As soon as this remark came out, even Zhu Xi was greatly applauded, using the relationship between the five elements of China to explain buying things, except for ten-year-old children, few people can have such an imagination.
Other claims about buying things
But after all, the small story of Zhu Xi mentioned above is a folk legend, and its authenticity is still in doubt. The specific reasons that are circulating now are actually in multiple versions. The more famous one is the Qing Dynasty scholars' research: the two largest commercial cities in the Eastern Han Dynasty were Luoyang and Chang'an.
One in the east and one in the west, most of the vendors traveled back and forth between the two cities, and over time they became shopping.
Some people also say that in the middle of the Ming Dynasty, the trade between China and the West gradually increased, and as a exchange between the East and the West, it was said that it was necessary to buy things.
Some people also say that the real meaning of this thing is the pocket of the mouth, because in ancient Chinese, the original meaning of the word Middle East is actually 橐 (a kind of pocket), the pocket must of course be tied, and over time, "the bridge (east) system" becomes "something." Having said all this, there is no doubt that the word East and West can represent too many things on the mainland.
The five directions of the east, west, south, and north encompass all things in the world, and the sun always rises from the east and sets from the west, paying attention to a beginning and an end, so the east and west will be different from other directions, and have the cultural ability to refer to all things.
All the vocabulary phrases in Chinese language and culture have been precipitated by history to this day, and even those conventional spoken languages have certain cultural value. Everything we end up reading carries traces of history, which is what we as Chinese should be most proud of.
epilogue
There are so many cultural connotations behind the word East and West alone, and we can really see from it how magnificent our long-standing Chinese culture is. In fact, in addition to words like buying things in life, there are many words that we have not paid attention to but are very interesting, and perhaps in the future, we really need to study these beautiful Chinese characters that we say every day.
As mentioned earlier, it carries the history of the Chinese nation for 5,000 years, and it can be seen that we say such words every day and night, which will naturally enhance our cultural self-confidence.
In today's society, China has developed into a modern socialist power, and militarily and economically, we have achieved great success, but culturally we have not really gained self-confidence.
We should always look at the position of Chinese culture in our hearts, use the language we speak every day to write the words of Chinese characters, establish our most sincere cultural self-confidence, so that we can Chinese to go to the world with our heads held high.