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Lecture | Betel Nut: A Two-Thousand-Year Popular History of a Small Green Fruit

author:The Paper

Cao Yu

On the evening of August 19th, the "One Chew 2,000 Years" new book sharing meeting sponsored by CITIC Publishing Group and Jiantou Bookstore was held at the Guomao Store of Beijing Jiantou Bookstore, and Cao Yu, the author of the book, a teacher at the College of Literature of Jinan University and a young scholar, shared his creative experience with online and offline readers, revealing the various social and cultural changes behind the betel nut. The following is a compilation of the contents of this event.

Lecture | Betel Nut: A Two-Thousand-Year Popular History of a Small Green Fruit

"Two Thousand Years of One Chew: From Drugs to Addictions, the Popular History of Betel Nut in China", Cao Yu/Author, CITIC Publishing Group Xinsi Culture, June 2022 edition

Let me first talk about the origin of the cover of the book "Two Thousand Years in One Chew". The color of the cover is actually closer to the color of the ripe fruit of the betel nut, and the juice it chews out is almost the same color, which can be said to be mimetic, simulating the color of the betel nut.

Lecture | Betel Nut: A Two-Thousand-Year Popular History of a Small Green Fruit

Areca catechu

Lecture | Betel Nut: A Two-Thousand-Year Popular History of a Small Green Fruit

Cyan betel nut

The betel nut we are most often exposed to in China now is probably like this, that is, the Hunan style, including dry betel nut - the packaged betel nut is the one we are most often exposed to. In fact, the popularity of this type of betel nut is very recent in China. Just like the title of the book "One Chew two thousand years", Chinese eat betel nut for two thousand years, traditionally eat betel nut, eat green betel nut, and this original method of eating was once widely popular throughout The coastal areas of Guangdong, Hainan, and Fujian, which are closer to the tropics.

Lecture | Betel Nut: A Two-Thousand-Year Popular History of a Small Green Fruit

William Alexander depicts Chinese eating betel nut

This is the earliest more realistic portrait of Chinese eating betel nuts that we can see today, painted by William Alexander, the painter of the Macartney Mission, in 1793. At that time, the portrait did not have a place written, but judging from his itinerary, the most likely place was in Macau. The painting has leaves, a lime box, and inside is a betel nut that has been wrapped. At this time, the betel nut was almost exactly the same as the leaf betel nut seen in Taiwan, and it was popular in Guangdong at that time to eat betel nut in this way. But if you go to Guangdong recently, you will find that in fact, Cantonese people have long stopped eating betel nuts, this custom is very strange to Cantonese people, because it has disappeared for at least a hundred years, so that by the early years of the Republic of China, the problem of chewing betel nuts has not become a social problem, and in other places it will be considered a social problem.

Where did the Cantonese custom of eating betel nut come from? All the people in the world who eat betel nut, the origin of the custom of chewing betel nut is the Austronesian language group. Austronesian language groups may still be a very strange concept for people in North China or The North, if we understand the language composition of China, we usually say Sino-Tibetan languages, Han and Yi, which belong to the Sino-Tibetan language family; There is also a very typical language family is the Dongtai language family, the Dong, Zhuang, Dai all speak the language of the Dongtai language, which is active in the Indochina Peninsula; There is also a Miao-Yao language family, sometimes called the Indochina language family, which is active in the Indochina Peninsula; Next, there is also the Altaic language family in northern China. The Austronesian language group is a very important ethnic group, and the origin of this ethnic group is generally widely considered by academics to be the mainland island of Taiwan. After its origins, Taiwan moved to the entire Pacific Archipelago and the islands of Southeast Asia, a group that was pervasive on the sea, with navigation technology as a prominent feature of them. They also have some strange folklore, such as the "carved black teeth" recorded in ancient Chinese books, which are generally descendants of the Guide Island language group. Therefore, when we look at the ancient Chinese books, we will find that there is a problem, which will write a lot of confusing names for the southern ethnic groups, and will think that Ouyue, Yue, and Luoyue are all considered to be Baiyue, without making detailed differences, but in fact, there are great differences between these native ethnic groups south of the Yangtze River in China, they may belong to different language families, such as some from the Dongtai language family, some from the Austronesian language family, these ethnic groups are living in south China. With the gradual expansion of the Han people to the south, some of these ethnic groups have integrated into the Han nationality, and some of them have left South China forever and migrated to the Indochina Peninsula, and the Austronesian language group is a typical example. There are no Austronesian language groups in Chinese mainland now, but it once had settlements off the coast of the mainland.

The Austronesian language group is the first group to betel nut to be found to have eaten betel nut, and the earliest site is on the island of Palawan, where a Duyang cave has been found, and the earliest traces of human chewing of betel nut have been found - the traces of the teeth of people who chewed betel nut about 5,000 years ago, which must have been produced by the mixture of betel nut and lime.

Later records can also find traces of these betel nut chewing in the Malay Peninsula or the Philippine Islands and southern Vietnam. Unfortunately, no such thing has been unearthed in South China. If according to the strict archaeological method of judgment, we cannot confirm that the custom of chewing betel nut really existed before the Han people arrived in South China, but the literature can support the claim that the Han people found betel nut after arriving in South China, so the evidence we can get now is that although there is no clear archaeological evidence, we can indirectly infer that South China is a tribe of Austronesian languages that chew betel nuts.

The custom of chewing betel nut spread with the Austronesian language group to where we see it now, and also affected its two northern neighbors, one in India and the other in China. After India was affected, the habit of chewing betel nut developed almost throughout the South Asian subcontinent, and they passed it down as part of a religious ritual. So chewing betel nuts in India is a very common thing, and it is still the same. Indians chew betel nut and Austronesian language group is still a little different, Indians chew betel nut method is to cut the betel nut very finely, wrapped in the leaves, but also add lime, but they will also add tobacco, sugar, will add other spices, is a very mixed chewing method. The custom of chewing betel nut in China has long been consistent with the chewing method of the Austronesian language group in Lingnan, that is, the state of green leaves and green wraps.

Speaking of Chinese the betel nut record, the first person to record the betel nut was Yang Fu. Yang Fu himself is a Guangzhou native, of course, the name Guangzhou appeared early and late, it already had jiaozhou Guangzhou in the Han Dynasty, but guangzhou at that time was a general reference to all places in Guangdong guangxi, and the current guangzhou city was redefined in the early years of the Republic of China, so the current Guangzhou and the previous Guangzhou refer to different scopes. Imagine that when Yang Fu of the Eastern Han Dynasty recorded the betel nut in detail, the information you got was that Yang Fu was a Han Chinese in South Vietnam, and he was most likely the descendant of the officers sent by the Han Dynasty to conquer South Vietnam—presumably such a conqueror status appeared in the land of South Vietnam. He recorded in detail how to eat betel nut. Sima Xiangru, who was earlier than him, also recorded betel nut, but he only had one sentence - he said in the Shanglin Fu that "Ren Pin and Lu", Ren Pin is betel nut, and Lu lu is a palm tree, so we do not think that he has seen it in the field or can directly convey information.

Yang Fu recorded it like this: "Betel nut, if the bamboo shoots are born on poles, the seeds are hard, the stem is straight up, there are no branches and leaves, and its shape is like a pillar." It was not five or six feet above, and the flood was swollen, like a tree. Because of the cracks, out of the ears, no flowers and real, as big as peach plums", describing the appearance of betel nuts. The last important point is to say that "drinking is set as a mouthful", that is, the method of Lingnan people chewing food at that time, plus explanation, adding oyster ash to betel nuts can make people feel happy, as the saying goes: "Betel nut to stay, you can forget your worries". Later, the "Compendium of Materia Medica" also used this sentence. So, a very important cultural imagination of betel nut comes from here. Yang Fu specially wrote "Foreign Objects", introducing various products of Lingnan to the Central Plains, so that the people of the Central Plains knew for the first time that there are so many properties in Lingnan, which may have very important medicinal value or edible value.

The influence of betel nut on Chinese civilization is very large, and it also has a very important influence on Indian civilization. After the betel nut spread to India, it also produced a series of fermentations in Indian civilization, especially its combination with Brahman and Buddhism, which produced a series of cultural imaginations. I will not explain it in detail here, but mainly talk about its influence on Western writing. The Western text has always been uncertain about the betel nut, it has two statements, one is called betel-nut, the other is called areca-nut, I use areca-nut in my book, because the use of betel-nut is not very accurate. Westerners have always had a very simple understanding of the betel nut tree, so that there was a big misunderstanding later, and I will explain to you later how this misunderstanding came about and why I want to use this areca-nut.

After Yang Fu introduced it to the Chinese civilization and the Central Plains civilization, the betel nut had its first use. Because betel nut is something that Lingnan people often chew, and the impression of Lingnan by the Central Plains people at that time was more miasma, it was believed that the reason why Lingnan people did not have diseases in Lingnan was because they chewed betel nut, and betel nut could get rid of miasma. So from this time on, betel nut was given the nickname "baconium", and it was thought that it could remove the miasma from the south. Miasma is a very interesting imagination, if a Beijinger wants to go to Guangdong now, probably will not take miasma as a factor of consideration - in fact, not only will not think about it now, since the Ming Dynasty, no one will think about this matter. But if you put it in the Two Han Dynasties or the Wei and Jin Dynasties, people at that time were still very afraid of the distribution of Lingnan, thinking that if I arrived in Lingnan, I would not live long, I would definitely be miasma, and I would die. In short, at least before the Song Dynasty, Lingnan was basically a place that was feared. But why didn't it come later, especially after the Southern Song Dynasty, there was basically no much description of the miasma of Lingnan? Mainly because the living conditions in Lingnan have become better, everyone is willing to go, miasma is actually just an excuse, if I don't want to go to it, there is miasma, if I want to go to it, there is no miasma. After the living conditions became better, so that by the time of the Ming Dynasty, Lingnan had become a place where merchants gathered and were fertile for thousands of miles, and at that time it was rushing to go, and those officials who were officials were very happy at the thought of being able to go to Lingnan to scrape the ground, and at this time they were not afraid of miasma at all. However, at the time of the two Han Dynasties, the miasma was still very obvious, so betel nut entered the cultural vision of Chinese, and was immediately given the imagination of washing miasma. Betel nut has also become the preferred medication for all qi, which means that all the bad qi, vomiting, and feeling that the qi is not smooth can be used to regulate it. Betel nut was the first choice among the four major southern medicines at that time, so there was a great demand for betel nut. But don't think that betel nut is a cheap thing, the price of medicine in ancient times was very high.

Lecture | Betel Nut: A Two-Thousand-Year Popular History of a Small Green Fruit

Betel nut hearts sliced

The form of betel nut into medicine is generally like this, the cylindrical state after the betel nut heart is sliced, you can see that its texture is very beautiful. So sometimes when we say that some wood or something is better, we will say that it has a betel nut grain and comes from here, because its grain is very good.

The earliest record of betel nut medicine was started by Zhang Zhongjing. Zhang Zhongjing clearly wrote several flavors in his prescription about the medicinal use of betel nut in the stomach qi, vomiting, and consumption. From him onwards, both Ge Hong and Tao Hongjing described the use of betel nut. After the Wei and Jin Dynasties, it has become a very common down-to-qi drug, and the status of traditional Chinese medicine has been further consolidated, so that after the Eastern Jin Dynasty, it has become a very common drug.

As mentioned earlier, the influence of the Han people's southward migration on betel nut, we know that a very important era in the development of betel nut is the Wei and Jin Southern and Northern Dynasties, in fact, the core of this period lies in the southward shift of the center of gravity of rule. In the records of betel nut in the Two Han Dynasties, generally speaking, appear in the "Foreign Objects" or in some medical books or medicine books, after the Two Han Dynasties, betel nut began to appear in the literature of the Chinese, the core point is that the focus of Chinese rule shifted from the original Luoyang to Jiankang. When the capital was relocated to Nanjing, Jiankang is now Nanjing, and the entire culture and scholar group moved south, and its understanding of betel nut was greatly strengthened. Because Jiankang is much closer to the south, the original ruling frontier, for example, in the Han Dynasty, put the capital of Jiaoguang Erzhou between Wuzhou in Guangxi and Fengkai in Guangdong, there is no flat land here, basically a place with many mountains in the middle reaches of the Xijiang River, which is very unsuitable for the development of a capital city or a large city. Guangzhou is a very suitable place for the development of a large city, all flat, able to rule the fertile plains of the entire Pearl River Delta. In the Time of the South Vietnamese Kingdom, the urban area of Guangzhou had always existed as a city, but by the Time of the Han Dynasty, the city was destroyed and moved to Fengkai, which meant that stability was better than development. For the Han Dynasty, Lingnan was not important, so I needed to put your city in a relatively small place to limit your development. Then in the Eastern Jin Dynasty, especially in the time of Eastern Wu, the situation was different, because Eastern Wu did not rule the developed areas in the north, so the south was very important to him, and he attached great importance to the development of Guangzhou. At that time, Sun Wu's regime moved the capital of Jiaoguang Erzhou, which was originally in Fengkai, to Guangzhou, and re-established Guangzhou.

By the time of the Eastern Jin Dynasty, Lingnan was also very important to the Eastern Jin Dynasty, because it had lost all the hinterland in the north, and it was necessary to strengthen its rule here, constantly send competent officials, and constantly develop the products of Lingnan to be used for its use. Therefore, when the center of gravity of Chinese rule shifted southward, betel nut became particularly important as a document recorded in the literature.

For example, in Beijing, there are so many cultural resources that I, as a cultural person in Guangzhou, often think of moving to Beijing, because Beijing really gathers too many resources, and being close to the center of gravity of domination is the natural attribute of cultural people. The same is true in Jiankang, when your capital is in Jiankang, cultural people will run to live near Jiankang, so that the records and descriptions of southern products are naturally more. So this caused the Wei and Jin Dynasties to betel nut is the most described era.

If you know the history of the introduction of Buddhism to China, you will think of the White Horse Temple in Luoyang, which was the first Buddhist temple in China. Although Buddhism had already spread to China during the Eastern Han Dynasty, its real rise was during the Northern and Southern Dynasties, and in the context of the great chaos that both the North and the South had entered, Buddhism became the biggest winner, and both rulers needed Buddhism to consolidate his unorthodox position. For example, the Han Dynasty was a very orthodox regime, and its dependence on religion was relatively weak, but the Northern and Southern Dynasties, whether it was Northern Wei or Xiao Liang, belonged to the pseudo-regime, because since the usurpation of the throne by the Song Emperor Liu Yu, the legitimacy of the entire regime was greatly questioned, at this time Buddhism was greatly developed, and Buddhism once again strengthened the impression of betel nut.

Just mentioned the influence of the Austronesian language group on Indians, Indians chew betel nut very early, before the birth of Buddhism, Indians have a general habit of chewing betel nut, but Chinese not, mainly because of climatic conditions, India is suitable for planting betel nut, the southern end of the Western Continent of South Asia is suitable for planting betel nut, but China is not suitable, until now only Hainan and Taiwan can produce betel nut, the southern part of Guangdong is not suitable for planting betel nut, because winter will still be affected by the cold tide, Once the betel nut tree is affected by the cold wave, the seeds are very small, and the commercial value of the small seeds will be greatly reduced. In India, betel nut was deeply embedded in Indian culture before the birth of Buddhism, and when Buddhism was born it has naturally become an offering, of which the "five trees and six flowers" rule includes the bodhi tree, the tall banyan tree, the bay leaf palm, the betel nut and the sugar palm. Needless to say, Bodhi is the embodiment of wisdom, Gao Rong is generally a very ornamental plant, bay leaf palm bay leaf is used to write the Baye Sutra, and Tibetan scriptures are also written with bay leaves, which are used to write scriptures after drying. Betel nut is used as a buddhist monk's incense and a refreshing object, on the one hand, it is incense, you can't use your filthy breath to rush the Buddha, so you need betel nut to incense; In addition, you need to use betel nut to refresh, Buddhist monks are actually quite easy to fall asleep when meditating and meditating, if you have betel nut it will be better. Sugar palm is used to produce a brown sugar, and it was also a very important offering as a temple at that time.

This rule was not well preserved after Han Buddhism, because the "five trees and six flowers" were all tropical crops, and it was unlikely that the Han Chinese would grow these things alive. Bodhi and Banyan trees are barely ok, and bay leaf palm, betel nut and sugar palm are impossible to survive. Lotus flowers can also survive, clerical orchids, yellow ginger flowers, frangipani flowers, Burmese osmanthus flowers and ground spring golden lotus, these should not be planted in north China, the south will be a little better, but also can not completely gather five trees and six flowers. "Five Trees and Six Flowers" The most common thing I have seen is in Thailand, Thai Buddhism has maintained the "five trees and six flowers" required by traditional Buddhism, and thai monks still maintain the tradition of chewing betel nut, and the offering before the Thai Buddha is betel nut.

When Buddhism flourished on Chinese soil, Chinese also suddenly discovered betel nut. Since the Eastern Han Dynasty, Chinese have been using betel nut as a medicine, as a kind of washing miasma, and suddenly found that betel nut is also used in Buddhism, at this time the status of betel nut immediately came up. Therefore, betel nut was used as a reward for a long time, to monks or temples. At that time, the price of betel nut was very high.

The clearest example of the Han Chinese use of betel nut as a symbol of faith is the tomb of Zhang Wenzao in Xuanhua, Hebei Province, where there are two plates of betel nuts in front of his tomb, which is explicitly enshrined in front of the tomb. So this is a very powerful finding, which is ironclad evidence, indicating its strong belief in Buddhism. Because Zhang Wenzao's tomb is a very interesting tomb, using the burial method of Xi Tiandi Pili, who burns people to ashes and buries them in a puppet. The scriptures behind it are all Buddhist scriptures, and all the tributes in it do not appear meat. The Southern Dynasty Xiao Ling's will also emphasized this, Xiao Ling instructed his family not to offer him the three animals slaughtered after his death. It is known that according to the Confucian tradition, a prince who dies must at least use the specifications of a young prisoner, and it is necessary to slaughter livestock, but this is not allowed in Xiao Ling's request, he asks for betel nut and jerky and wine for offerings - in some Buddhist concepts, jerky belongs to the three pure meats. So, in that era, betel nut was already considered a Buddhist and could be used to replace traditional Confucian etiquette.

Lecture | Betel Nut: A Two-Thousand-Year Popular History of a Small Green Fruit

In Zhang Wenzao's tomb, the two tribute plates on the far right hold betel nuts

But I think that even if betel nut is found in Zhang Wenzao's tomb, it cannot be considered that in the Liao era, there was a possibility of widespread eating of betel nut in the north, because I always thought that betel nut in the north was a very expensive thing, or something that only went with buddhist beliefs, it may not be so widely popular, but a small number of nobles will enjoy it, after all, it is a high-priced thing. We sometimes think that what is found in the tomb is a norm, but it is actually a perversion, for example, if we examine some of the more important sites, we will find bronzes, but did the ancients really eat bronzes? It is impossible, the ancients ate with pottery, but those pottery were not preserved, it has a problem of survivor bias.

After the Southern Dynasty, (in addition to) the two uses we have just talked about - one is the medicinal use of betel nut, which is based on the characteristics of its object itself, and the other is the use of Buddhism, which came directly from Indian Buddhism and was borrowed by Chinese culture - and there is also a very important one, which is the four important ones I have said about the imagination of betel nut, called "straightening the pavilion, a thousand and one". This imagination makes betel nut appear many times in the derogatory poems, that is, when a literati or scholar in the Central Plains is relegated to the south, he usually writes about betel nut, and will repeatedly emphasize that his heart is the same as betel nut, infinite yearning, loyalty to the imperial court, such as this paragraph written "The original is not big, the end is not small, the top is not tilted, the bottom is not oblique, the tone is straight, and there are thousands of ones." This is actually a manifestation of the state of betel nut as a thing being celebrated, it was given a cultural imagination by the Han people, and it is a positive plant. This imagination is the first imagination of Han culture superimposed on betel nut.

Of course, this imagination soon turned into another kind of imagination: loyalty to a partner. Because this kind of imagination generally refers to the emperor, although I was assigned to Lingnan, I saw the betel nut and I wrote it down to express that my heart for the imperial court has not changed, I still have my heart to the emperor, my heart to the court. However, after arriving in the people, the opportunity to become an official is not available to everyone, and the relationship of love and love is shared by everyone, and this imagination becomes a loyal and inseparable need for each other, and it becomes a folk love letter. After the continuous processing of Chinese literati, the image of betel nut in Chinese culture has been further strengthened. For example, Li Bai's "A Betel Nut", "When the Golden Plate, a Recommendation of Betel Nut" uses this allusion, as well as "Tears to the betel nut, with the return of the wild goose", Yu Xin's "Suddenly see the betel nut" "Green room thousands of children ripe, purple spikes bloom." Mo said and did not go far, once met." Because of the rendering of the image of betel nut by these literati, betel nut has formed a stronger cultural imprint in Chinese culture, making betel nut a symbol in Chinese culture, just as we generally think of "Eilean Saying" when we talk about lotus flowers, or that hibiscus will have a series of cultural imaginations. The cultural imagination of betel nut begins here, and it is more positive. However, after the fall of Chen, due to the shift in the center of gravity of the rule, the record of betel nut began to decrease, so the first climax passed.

Betel nut in a long historical time is a Lingnan custom, this folk custom due to our imagination of betel nut, the formation of a very fixed impression of male and female love. For example, Su Shi, he wrote about seven or eight betel nut works, he wrote betel nut also has a meaning that actually includes dedication to the imperial court, to the emperor, or my heart has not changed, I can be recalled by you to Kaifeng at any time. Including Yang Wanli's "Little Po Yingzhou" also wrote that "everyone chews betel nut with vine leaves, and the household has a thatched eaves covering the earthen bed." Only the spring breeze is not cold and begging, and the stream blows the fragrance of grapefruit flowers", Yang Wanli wrote this idyllic poem very beautifully, and the Yingzhou he wrote here is now the Yingde in Guangzhou, where Yingde black tea is produced.

Let's look at how much it cost the ancients to eat betel nut. If we see betel nut now, in Beijing there are 20 yuan, 30 yuan, 50 yuan, and a kind of 100 yuan, so betel nut is a very expensive thing. In ancient times it was also a very expensive thing. According to Guilin Tongjue Zhou's "Lingwai Dai Answer", "The small and light one is the chicken heart betel nut, and the large and flat one is the big belly." The middle and lower people spend more than a hundred betel nut money a day", this "money" refers to the production of money, and the production of more than 100 pieces of money is to spend more than a hundred pieces of money a day to buy betel nut. In a hundred theories, a thousand texts are consistent, and one-tenth of a day is consistent, and at that time, the monthly salary from The Zhixian County of Bapin was 15 consecutive, and you can imagine what the proportion of the amount of money spent on betel nut is about.

But the Song Dynasty is a very special era, have you found that the living standards of the people in the Song Dynasty seem to be particularly high, especially in the Southern Song Dynasty, in addition to grain income, there are many monetary incomes. In fact, the living standards of the people in the Southern Song Dynasty were far higher than during the Ming and Qing dynasties. People of that era could afford to pay more than 100 betel nuts a day, and there was basically no such record after the Ming and Qing dynasties, because after the Ming and Qing dynasties, the people could not afford to eat betel nuts, so the later weakness of betel nuts had a lot to do with the people's inability to eat. We look at the inheritance of a thing in fact, the inheritance of the folk is very important, this thing has a great market probability among the people can be passed on, if it is only the nobles to eat, when the nobles or this court is overthrown, it will completely disappear, can not be passed on.

In the history of Canton, there are a large number of records of betel nuts and physical objects, including betel nut utensils, which can be seen in the Guangdong Provincial Museum. As we all know, the Forbidden City will also exhibit things like betel nut bags, and betel nut buns often appear in the inner house of the Qing Dynasty, so in fact, the upper echelons of society in various places mainly have the habit of chewing betel nuts, because you will see that these betel nuts are made of silver, and the disappearance of betel nut habits in other places also has a lot to do with these upper layers.

Lecture | Betel Nut: A Two-Thousand-Year Popular History of a Small Green Fruit

Betel nut purses from the Palace Museum's collection

Lecture | Betel Nut: A Two-Thousand-Year Popular History of a Small Green Fruit

The betel nut jade box used by the Qianlong Emperor, in the collection of the Palace Museum

Let's look at the way Guangdong people ate betel nut in the Ming and Qing dynasties, which is recorded in detail in Qu Dajun's "Guangdong New Language": "Those who eat underripe are known as betel nut green, green, and shell also, eating betel nut meat at the same time, the taste is thick and fragrant, and the Qiong people are the most addicted", here it is said that the Hainan people eat betel nut green, which is the state of green fruit; "The ripe ones know betel nut meat, the jade, then Lian, Qin, Xinhui and Xiyue, jiaotong people love it", that is to say, people in Guangdong, Guangxi, Vietnam and other places like to eat, cross-toe is Vietnam, they like to eat this state, jade is just said that the betel nut heart state; "Ripe and dry scorched shells are known as jujube betel nuts, then gao, lei, Yangjiang, Yangchun people love it", these place names have not changed, still people in these places like to eat; "Those who are salted are known as betel nut brine, then the people of Guangzhou and Zhaoqing are fond of it." The Japanese riot is dry, the heart is like a fragrant attacher, the dry betel nut, then Hui, Chao, Dongguan, Shunde people love it", the place name has not changed, are the people in these places. You can see that there are four states, betel nut green, betel nut meat, jujube betel nut and dried betel nut, which are the four more common forms of consumption of betel nut at that time. This is according to the classification method of Guangdong Customs, because Guangdong Customs pays taxes in a classified manner. To emphasize again, the object of Guangdong Customs taxation is all customs goods regardless of where you come from, if this thing is from Hainan, it is also subject to customs duties, which is the rule of the Ming and Qing dynasties. Betel nut is to pay two taxes, the first is the hammer coconut tax, which is collected locally in Hainan, the second heavy tax is collected at the Guangdong Customs, if there are checkpoints elsewhere in the inland, you have to pay the tax again, as long as you pass the customs tax. There is a classification for collecting taxes, otherwise they cannot be collected.

We all know that the active ingredient that makes people produce euphoria is called betel nut, betel nut is decomposed with heat, when we heat the betel nut, such as I dry it, it will probably lose 30% to 40% of the betel nut alkali, which has an impact on its taste. The state of betel nut salt (the shell of the betel nut is salted with salt and then dried) is the best way to retain the betel nut alkali, which can make the betel nut alkali retain to the greatest extent, because it has not been heated, but the water is removed, can be stored for a long time, so this state is a better way to save at that time. But there is a big problem with this method, that is, it will be very salty. At that time, the so-called white betel nut refers to this state, because it is covered with salt, so it is called white betel nut. Wang Guangyang's "Miscellaneous Records of Lingnan" is written like this: "The seaside is prone to heat and cool at dawn, and the moisture is steamy and thin. Yesterday, there was a boat in Yazhou, and the city was fighting to buy white betel nuts. "This full city refers to the city of Guangzhou, all to buy white betel nuts." And how to eat this salted betel nut? It is probably a bit like the current state of legal bayberry or legal plum, which has to be soaked and then added with sugar or other spices. For a long time, Chinese ate betel nuts like this. Chinese why I have the impression of snacking on betel nuts probably came from here. It can also be seen from the notes of the Ming Dynasty that betel nut is something that can be used to make something like preserved fruit.

In Lingnan, betel nut has another meaning. In the wedding in Guangdong that year, there must be betel nuts to reflect the mutual investment and specialization in the wedding. Betel nut has long maintained a symbol of love relationship, for example in Indian mythology there is often a relationship between betel nut and love object. In Chinese culture, there is also such a meaning, for example, in the wedding ceremony in Guangxi, the betel nut is exchanged as a very important gift, very formal, "offering betel nut, bearing betel nut, rewarding betel nut, betel nut song", there is a set of ceremonies accompanied by it. It is a formal relationship, not a relationship of stealing. However, in the northern literature records, there is a kind of secret relationship, such as Jia Lian and You Erjie in "Dream of the Red Chamber" to betel nut, which reflects an informal relationship. Why? You think, the meaning of love has not changed, but because it is not so common in the north, it has been given a more informal relationship meaning.

Lecture | Betel Nut: A Two-Thousand-Year Popular History of a Small Green Fruit

This is a picture painted in the early years of the Republic of China, "this Chinese picture of selling betel nuts, its people use cages to fill Annam Hainan betel nuts, sell along the alley, each with scissors to break a few petals, buy sporadic food", is a record of selling betel nuts at that time. In fact, by the 1980s, some vendors selling betel nuts could often be seen on the streets of Hunan, of course, they did not use this burden, but generally used small carts to travel. The packaging betel nut we are familiar with now has only become popular on a large scale since the 1990s, and its real popularity is that after 2000, with the promotion of television media in the country, it also became popular in specific occupations, such as train drivers, and e-sports industry practitioners, it has a special career preference.

In Taiwan, betel nut also has another meaning, that is, it means "betel nut Xi Shi", which is a unique cultural symbol produced in Taiwan. Taiwan has always been able to produce betel nut, and is one of the only two betel nut producing areas in China, but betel nut Xishi is another custom.

In the great changes at the end of the Qing Dynasty, the Canton area was once a very important betel nut-eating territory, and now there are only sporadic cultural relics, and after the twentieth century, only the Xiangtan area in the mainland area has retained the custom of eating betel nut intact. However, the guangzhou people are the most written about the betel nut in the record, Guangzhou has eaten betel nut for a long time in history, and Guangzhou is the core area of Lingnan culture, this place records the history of betel nut, including Yang Fu's "Foreign Object Chronicle", Wan Zhen's "Nanzhou Foreign Object Chronicle", monk Shamen Yijing's note "South China Sea Sent back to the Inner Law", Zhou Gofei's "Lingwai Dai Answer", the Republic of China period Rong Yuan and Yang Chengzhi wrote "Betel Nut Research"...

Next, let's answer the question that just began, why do Westerners keep calling the wrong betel nut? Westerners call it betel nut, which is a very common name, but betel nut is actually literally translated as a leaf. That's because Westerners have always seen betel nut and leaf as a plant in their minds. They had no way of distinguishing between the growth of the two plants, the betel nut and the betel nut, which were quite different, and although the leaves often grew under the betel nut tree, they were not the same plant.

Editor-in-Charge: Gu Ming

Proofreader: Luan Meng

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