Today, some seemingly ordinary animals and plants have their own provenance or experience in the writings of Xiamen local chroniclers, and the names are various, even if the age changes, they are still vivid and lively or interesting, and there are few numbers, which mean themselves in it.
●Zhang Zhichen
Published in Xiamen Daily
Today, some seemingly ordinary animals and plants have their own provenance or experience in the writers of Xiamen Local Chronicles, and their names are various, even if the age changes, they are still vivid and lively or interesting, which is amazing.
Hollow cabbage, there are urns, vegetables and other names. Daoguang's "Xiamen Chronicle" and "Chronicle of Xiamen City of the Republic of China" such a commentary: a hollow cabbage, vine, white flowers, the stem in the void, and paraphrased the book "Hidden Zhai Idle" recorded: (hollow cabbage) Bunsen Dongyi Gulun Kingdom, people use urns to carry their seeds, so the common name urn dish. Originally, urns were used to carry their seeds, so there was an "urn dish". The seedlings are collected to live in the soil, also known as "pickles" (also written as pickles), which has become the common name of the Hokkien language used by the people of the city today.
Dutch beans, "Xiamen City Of the Republic of China" describes: "Ripe at the end of the year, so the name of the New Year bean, or cloud Holland beans." Sweet taste. This bean is not native to the Netherlands, but with the colonial expansion of the Dutch, this bean spread in all directions, Chinese mostly called "Dutch beans", while the Dutch called them "Chinese snow pea". This bean is delicate in color, listed in the season around the New Year, called "New Year bean" will not be caused by the harmonic sound of "Dutch bean"? He Nian Bean, failed to spread popularly, slightly regrettable.
The king of the fruit, Lychee, Putian was named "Licheng" because of it, which shows the status of this thing in Fujian. Lychee is well-known and often ranks first in the Fujian local chronicle "Fruit Genus". "Lujiang Zhi" notes: "There are many varieties of lychees, sexual heat, more food will be solved with honey pulp, the quality of the island Houpu is good." Another famous specialty longan, "Lujiang Zhi" records: "Longan, a Li nu, sex is very warm" . The earliest surviving chronicle in Tong'an County, "Great Comrade", records that it is almost the same: "(Longan) a concubine, dried and warmed up." Longan ripens late in lychees, so the name Lifei and Li Nu, it seems that even as a fruit, it will be "not born at the right time". "Big Comrade" describes bitter melon: "sweet and cool, a golden lychee", which should be related to the fact that the surface of the bitter melon fruit resembles a lychee bump and the color is brilliant.
Let's look at the most common sweet potatoes. The Chronicle of Xiamen City of the Republic of China said: "Also known as sweet potato. The vine is buried in the soil, that is, the vine takes root and bears fruit into a potato. The potatoes of winter are the sweetest.". The sweet potatoes produced by Dongshan, Dongpingshan and Zengcuo'an on Xiamen Island have been well received. Sweet potatoes, native to the Americas, are imported from the Age of Discovery, and are "very affordable, and the poor people substitute for grain." Sweet potatoes entered China, and the ancestors of Fujian made great contributions. In the thirty-third year of the Qianlong Dynasty, the book "Records of Golden Potato Transmission" was published, which is a precious document for planting and promoting sweet potatoes, which records that Chen Zhenlong, an overseas Chinese in Changle, had been doing business in Luzon for many years, and saw that the local zhu potatoes were everywhere in the wild, raw and cooked and edible, and arrived in Xiamen on the seventh day of the 21st year of the Wanli Calendar. The book recalls that in May 1593, Chen Zhenlong and sweet potato vines set off from Luzon by boat, arrived in Xiamen seven days later, and then transferred to fuzhou hometown to try planting successfully, and the following year, Fujian Inspector Fu Jin Xue promoted planting in the province, coinciding with the great drought, playing the role of saving the famine in the disaster year, and the sweet potato once enjoyed the nickname of "golden potato".
Some of the place names in Xiamen are closely related to the common names of the products here. Frog, Xiamen people have their own nickname - water chicken. "Lujiang Zhi" Notes: Frogs, yellow skin wrinkles, large heads and short mouths, and strong chirps, are waterfowls. The older generation of Xiamen people know that in today's Houjiangdai area, there was once an L-shaped plot that extended into the south bank of Yundang Port and surrounded a water area, which was called "water chicken leg", and this area later evolved into industrial land. Moreover, when urns and vegetables are mentioned, the local chronicles mention the Changliao River many times. Historically, this river is outside Xiamen City, originally the port of Yundang Port, after siltation into the river, also known as Kunchi, in the summer river a variety of urns, vegetables, and the best quality, the local people therefore call the Changliao River "Urn Cai River" "Dian Cai River". The vicissitudes of the great changes, the "Urn Cai River" has been filled in the 1920s, siming north and south road is part of it.
It is said that culture has the function of indoctrination, and see "Big Comrade" to introduce the lamp moth: "A lamp moth, who dies by blowing the lights on a summer night, can warn of inflammation." When introducing the monkey, add the note: "A monkey, sexual cunning." But all literate people are associated with "inflammatory tendencies" and "trees falling and scattering". If you trace back to the roots, the idiom "the tree falls and the fox scatters" is actually related to the traitor Qin Juniper. "Chronicle of Xiamen City of the Republic of China" about the "cormorant" entry - shaped like a bird and black, with a small throat sac under the chin, a long and slightly curved mouth, good at diving to get fish, the townspeople often feed to fish, a "bird thief". A "bird thief" refers directly to cormorants doing "tricks" that are different from ordinary birds. All of this, the author of few numbers, the meaning of itself.