David's Avatar

[Guest Pommey]

yin- moon

yin-hell/devil woman

yin-weak

yin-soft

[A Mafan]

I remember my wife's reaction when we opened the second clock that was given to us on our wedding day.

 

I cringed when I saw it because, not only was in "unlucky" and insulting, it was also the second clock that we received. I was ready for a tantrum or anything...

 

She sighed and said, "Well. I guess that's one for each of us."

 

Thankfully we did not receive any knives.

 

 

Last year for CNY one of the things I sent her was a wrist watch.

I mailed it and then remembered about the clocks.

I was freaking out but she told me it does not apply to wrist watches.

 

I dont know if she said that to let me off the hook.

It doesn't apply to wristwatches because the superstition is regarding a homonym of "sending a clock" (song zhong). Sending a wristwatch (song biao/song shoubiao) cannot have the same homonym.

[david_dawei]

Yin and Yang is a polarity representation; there is no hot without cold; no left without right; no heaven without hell. If the concept exists, a representation will exist.

 

It doesn't make too much sense to just take Yin or Yang by them self and dwell on them. They are inseparable parts which are meant to show the dependency and balance each brings. While this is usually most associated with Daoism, it's the theoretical fabric of life and health/medicine (and more).

 

As a systematic [metaphysical] understanding to life was formulating, the interdependent duality of Yin and Yang as found everywhere in life implied to the ancient thinkers that these TWO must of come from ONE (and formed that one). That ONE is Tai Ji (or in the west, Tai Chi), which represents the extreme poles of energy now moving and ready to separate.

 

The Yin Yang symbol already shown in this thread is known in china as the Tai Ji Tu (太極圖 - diagram of the extreme poles-cosmos). It's a shame that the west uses Tai Chi (instead of Tai Ji) since it's easy to lose the association of Tai Ji to Wu Ji , from which Tai Ji comes.

 

Wu Ji could mean 'without poles' or limitlessness. It is the empty space or a primeval state of the universe. In some cases, represented as empty chaos with the potential energy ready to divide into two (as Tai Ji).

 

How does this all tie back to Dao?

 

In my trip thread to china, I made some comments about dao, but dao is the 'process' by which life unfolds and generates. That is how Wu ji gives rise to Tai Ji; Tai Ji gives rise to eventually all matter.

 

By balancing all the influencing forces, life operates; rain comes, sun raise, grass grows, earthquakes occur, man lives and dies, etc. In this way, the 'catastrophes' of nature are as natural as man walking a step. Any event is the outcome of the influences of nature's various competing processes at work.

 

The process is dao; At Wu Ji, the outcome is Tai Ji. At Tai Ji the outcome is heaven and earth; At heaven and earth the outcome is all matter and life, etc...

 

To look at one symbol or the other and get a singular interpretation would be to miss the big picture. When I see Yin Yang, I see all I describe above and then also all the discrete representations in life.

Edited January 11, 2010 by DavidZixuan (see edit history)

[Randy W]

But the key to my wife's interpretation of your avatar may lie in taking the symbols separately - she sees the yin/yang symbol in the same way you describe.

[david_dawei]

But the key to my wife's interpretation of your avatar may lie in taking the symbols separately - she sees the yin/yang symbol in the same way you describe.

Yes, I agree. She sees 'Yin' and associates it to some symbol or meaning for the underworld.

 

As can be found in wiki, chinese terms for underworld abound:

 

Among the more common names for the Underworld are (the most common ones near the top):

µØªz - d¨¬y¨´ the underworld prison

µØ¸® - d¨¬fŭ the underworld mansion

üSȪ - hu¨¢ngqu¨¢n the yellow spring (meaning the origin/source of life and death, possibly a reference to the Yellow River)

êŽég - y¨©nji¨¡n the shady space (cf. Yin and yang)

ꎸ® - y¨©nfŭ the shady mansion

êŽË¾ - y¨©ns¨© the shady office

É­Á_µî - sh¨¥nlu¨® di¨¤n the court of Sinluo

éÁ_µî - y¨¢nlu¨® di¨¤n the court of Yanluo

¾ÅȪ - jiŭqu¨¢n the nine springs (origin/source)

ÖØȪ - ch¨®ngqu¨¢n the repeating spring (origin/source)

Ȫ· - qu¨¢nl¨´ the spring road

ÓÄÚ¤ - y¨­um¨ªng the serene darkness

ÓÄÈÀ - y¨­urăng the serene land

»ð¿» - huŏk¨¤ng the fire pit

¾ÅÓÄ - jiŭy¨­u the nine serenities

¾ÅÔ­ - jiŭyu¨¢n the nine origins

Ú¤¸® ¨C m¨ªngfŭ the dark mansion

°¢±Ç - ¨¡b¨ª (pinyin), a Buddhist term, from Sanskrit Av¨©ci, the hell of uninterrupted torture, last and deepest of eight hot hells

×ã¸ú - z¨²g¨¥n the heel of the foot, also means hells

Ûº¶¼³Ç - F¨¥ngd¨± Ch¨¦ng, name of a city imagined to contain an entrance to Diyu

And terminologies related to hell:

ÄκΘò - the bridge of helplessness

ÍûàlÅ_ - the home viewing pavilion

ÓÍå - the deep frying wok, one of the tortures in hell.

Èý‰T - the three tortures, burn by fire (Budd. »ð‰T), chop by knife (Budd. µ¶‰T), torn apart by beasts (Budd. Ѫ‰T, spill of blood).

[a2784]

But the key to my wife's interpretation of your avatar may lie in taking the symbols separately - she sees the yin/yang symbol in the same way you describe.

Yes, I agree. She sees 'Yin' and associates it to some symbol or meaning for the underworld.

FWISW ... my wife saw the same thing when she first looked at your avatar; heaven and hell. It was not until I said it is supposed to be Yin and Yang that she said yes it also means that but it really means nothing ... just two words about death ... no need to talk about it ..

 

As you have said before .... China and Chinese is very complex ....

 

{edit} Replaced missing close quote tag.

Edited January 11, 2010 by dnoblett (see edit history)

[A Mafan]

The only two reasons I can think that she would be getting so upset might be she associates the original script with a dead religion, or that the Yin and Yang are shortened versions of crass words for genitalia. Both possibilities seem to be an awful stretch, though.

 

I admit: I'm stumped.

[david_dawei]

But the key to my wife's interpretation of your avatar may lie in taking the symbols separately - she sees the yin/yang symbol in the same way you describe.

Yes, I agree. She sees 'Yin' and associates it to some symbol or meaning for the underworld.

 

FWISW ... my wife saw the same thing when she first looked at your avatar; heaven and hell. It was not until I said it is supposed to be Yin and Yang that she said yes it also means that but it really means nothing ... just two words about death ... no need to talk about it ..

 

As you have said before .... China and Chinese is very complex ....

I've said this before many times; try asking [directly] about Daoism and the full meaning of Yin Yang and many just cannot articulate what they want to say; but mention some daoist story and they get the [indirect] association.

 

Of course, concepts like heaven and hell tend to be religious but china is ancient enough to have very early deistic concepts which came, left, and then resurfaced when Daoism took on it's religious branch. At that point, Yin and Yang fell into that association since all things get a polar distinction.

 

In this case, it would seem symbolism and superstition, which is very important in their historical culture, survives as a stronger association than maybe philosophical daoism; The latter is not preached nor pushed down anyone's throat; it is a part of the historical record and it's stories and meaning filter down into life, but symbols and superstition hold a strong place even today. It's like they simply [unknowingly] live the philosophical part but they [knowingly] place importance on the symbolic parts. This in itself is a Yin Yang balance playing out!

[Smitty]

While I'm enjoying the discussion, wouldn't the simplest way of dealing with this be to just block the image, if your browser supports that feature?

[Randy W]

While I'm enjoying the discussion, wouldn't the simplest way of dealing with this be to just block the image, if your browser supports that feature?

 

 

I ran out of yellow stickies and white out a long time ago.

 

 

 

Seriously, though, it's not THAT serious. She just insists that I scroll off the page whenever she sees it. I usually try to ask why, and accommodate her.

 

Her answer is usually, "You no need know. I tell you."

Edited January 12, 2010 by Randy W (see edit history)

[a2784]

While I'm enjoying the discussion, wouldn't the simplest way of dealing with this be to just block the image, if your browser supports that feature?

 

 

I ran out of yellow stickies and white out a long time ago.

 

 

 

Seriously, though, it's not THAT serious. She just insists that I scroll off the page whenever she sees it. I usually try to ask why, and accommodate her.

 

Her answer is usually, "You no need know. I tell you."

Funny .. that is also the same thing I got from my wife when I tried to push her/ask questions like: 1) doesn't it mean yin and yang, 2) what is wrong or bad about it if it means hell and heaven.

 

She said it really means nothing and it not worth talking about. When I said I am really curious because I thought it was just Yin and Yang she said ... just drop it you dont need to know. It is nothing.

[david_dawei]

ok... to keep Randy reading without interruption, I've changed my Avatar to something even his wife might ask him to now pause for a longing look; Fu - luck.

 

When i was in Nanjing visiting Jesse, I bought a 'Bai Fu' tea pot; there were one hundred characters of Fu written on it.

 

What I show in my avatar now is a sequence from Oracle bone > Bronze Inscription > Seal Character > Traditional Character for Fu.

 

Lest anybody want to point out the left part as meaning (alter) and the right part as phonetic alone (pot); consider that the earliest characters tended to only show the right character and that once there was a compound representation, it was common to also represent them inflected as well, shown below (not uncommon among early characters); Note alter is on right:

 

Oracle Bone:

http://www.chineseetymology.org/CharacterImages/Oracle/J00000/j00200/j00277.gif

 

Bronze:

http://www.chineseetymology.org/CharacterImages/Bronze/B00000/b00100/b00199.gif

 

Seal:

http://www.chineseetymology.org/CharacterImages/Lst/L20000/l25200/L25286.gif

[a2784]

ok... to keep Randy reading without interruption, I've changed my Avatar to something even his wife might ask him to now pause for a longing look; Fu - luck.

 

 

At least you didn't use this Fu .... ¸¼!

[david_dawei]

ok... to keep Randy reading without interruption, I've changed my Avatar to something even his wife might ask him to now pause for a longing look; Fu - luck.

 

 

At least you didn't use this Fu .... ¸¼!

yea... I'm not trying to get Randy in too much trouble !

[Randy W]

Okay - that meets with her approval ( at least a "mmh", anyway)

 

But she did get in one more "sagua" since I haven't been able to clear my cache yet in Firefox.

Edited January 12, 2010 by Randy W (see edit history)