phorum - Overseas Chinese Forum at Asiawind - The reincarnation of a scholar

Overseas Chinese Forum at Asiawind

Newer Topic | Older Topic

About Chinese Surnames

Author: CHUNG Yoon Ngan
Date: 01-04-12 08:44

About Chinese Surnames (關於華人的姓氏)

Long time ago, before Huang Di (黃帝) or the Yellow Emperor, people living
in the land of what we now call China already had surnames to identify themselves.
At that time it was a maternal society (母系公社). People knew only their
mothers and they did not whom their fathers were.

Surname is called Xing (姓) in Chinese. Xing is a combination of two radicals
of Nu (女 female) and Sheng (生 produce), that is females produce children.
The then children bore their mothers' surnames because they did not know
their fathers. Legend has it that, only after Fu Xi Shi (伏羲氏), whose
surname name was Feng (風 or wind), established rules of marriages and then
the children recognized their fathers and they began to bear their surnames.

By the periods of the Dynasties of Xia (夏朝 2205BC to 1766BC), Shang (商
朝 1783BC to 1122BC) and Zhou (周朝 1134BC to 256BC) people already had
Xing (姓 surnames) and Shi (氏 family name). Xing derived from the village
where a person lived or his particular tribe. Shi could be a title bestowed
upon a person by the ruler, the official position a person was holding or
a posthumous title given by a ruler.

For a commoner he had Xing and Ming (名 name) but he had no Shi. For an
aristocrat he had a surname, Shi and a name. A female and a male having
the same Shi were allowed to get married. However, traditionally, if they
shared the same surname they were forbidden to intermarried because they
were supposedly shared the same ancestor. It was, and even nowadays, considered
mildly incestuous for a couple sharing the same surname to marry. Evidences
had showed that a same surname couple could produce inferior offspring. There
is a Chinese Saying:

同姓不攀親---Tong2 xing4 bu4 pan qing4
A male and a female bearing the same surname should not get married.

During the reign of Emperor Tai Zong Li Shimin (太宗皇帝李世民 627AD to
649AD) of Tang Dynasty (618AD to 907AD) an official by the name of Gao Shilian
(高士廉) compiled a book containing all the surnames that he could find
at that time. The book was titled "Shi Zu Zhi 氏族志 or The Annal of the
Clans". The administration of Li Shi Min used this book as a guide for marriages
and for admittance to government offices.

Bai Jia Xing (百家姓) written by an anonym during the Song Dynasty (960AD
to 1279AD) was the most common book on surnames ever written. It has 408
single character surnames and 30 double character surnames. Nowadays there
are more than 5,000 Chinese surnames. My book "The Origin of Chinese Surnames
華人姓的來源" contains the most common 550 of them.

Many countries have the most three common surnames. In Britain the three
most common surnames are: Smith, Jones and Williams. The three most common
surnames in U.S.A are: Smith, Johnson and Carson; in France: the Martin,
Bernard and Dupont; in Germany: Schultz, Mueller, and Shmidt and in Russia:
the Ivanov, Vasiliev, Deternov.

What about Chinese surnames?
Well, there are four most common surnames in China: the Zhang (張), Wang
(王), Li (李) and Zhao (趙). There are more than 100 millions Chinese bearing
the surname Zhang and another 100 millions with surname Wang. Surnames Zhang
and Wang could be the most common surnames in the whole world.

It was estimated that; forty percent of the Chinese or 400 million are with
these ten surnames:

Zhang (張), Wang (王), Li (李), Zhao (趙), Chen (陳), Yang (楊), Wu (吳),
Liu (劉), Huang (黃), and Zhou (周).

More than ten percent or 100 million Chinese are with these surnames:
Xu (徐), Zhu (朱), Lin (林), Sun (孫), Ma (馬), Gao (高), Hu (胡), Zheng
(鄭), Guo (郭) and Xiao (蕭).

About ten percent of the Chinese share these ten surnames:
Xie (謝), He (何), Xu (許), Song (宋), Shen (沈), Luo (羅), Han (韓), Deng
(鄧), Liang (梁) and Ye (葉).

The following fifteen surnames are also being shared by about ten percent
Chinese:
Fang (方), Cui (崔), Cheng (程), Pan (潘), Cao (曹), Feng (馮), Wang (汪
), Cai (蔡), Yuan (袁), Lu (盧), Tang (唐), Qian (錢), Du (杜), Peng (彭
) and Lu (陸).

In other words, more than seventy percent or 700 million of the Chinese
in the world are sharing the above forty five surnames. On the contrary,
only about thirty percent of the Chinese sharing the rare 4,900 surnames
like: Hou (侯), Jiang (江), Miao (苗), Mai (麥), Yue (岳), Sima (司馬),
Ouyang (歐陽), Mao (毛), Yi (易) etc etc.

Posted to Overseas Chinese Forum at asiawind.com
By CHUNG yoon-Ngan (鄭永元)
All rights reserved

Reply To This Message

The reincarnation of a scholar

Author: CHUNG Yoon Ngan
Date: 01-04-12 08:49

The reincarnation of a scholar

During the reign of Emperor Xiao Zhu Youdang (孝帝朱祐檔 1488AD to 1505AD)
of the Ming Dynasty (明朝1368AD to 1644AD), there lived an old scholar in
the city of Fuzhou (福州), the capital of Fujian province (福建省). He had
passed the County Examinations and the Prefectural Tests while he was in
his teens . Since then, he was so unlucky that he failed to pass the Prefectural
Examinations, which was held in Fuzhou city every third year, even though
he had tried his best in every attempt. He was near his seventy when he sat
for the previous examination.

Although he was unsuccessful in all his attempts, he did not give up studying,
in fact he studied harder. Thus he became a man of great erudition.

Since he had passed the County Examination he was able to become a teacher
for elementary students. He was a very poor teacher and had a wife and a
son. His son did not follow his footstep to become a bookworm, instead he
became a farm labourer.

Life was a disappointment for him. After his seventieth birthday he lost
his vitality to study and he became feeble. One day, he was very ill and
he knew that he was going to die. He wrote a poem as epilogue and told his
wife to gather all his literary works, and instructing her to put them in
a box and store them away carefully. He died that evening.

Fifteen years later, there was a brilliant young lad in the county of Shaoxing
(紹興縣) in Zhejiang province (浙江省). This young lad passed his County
and the Prefecture Examinations at the age of fifteen. Within a short period
of five years he passed the Provincial, Metropolitan and Palace Examinations
as well as the Final Examinations in the Imperial Court. The Emperor appointed
him as the Imperial Examiner for the province of Fujian. His literary works
were widely read through out the country. He conducted many Provincial Examinations
since he arrived in Fujian province.

One day, the academicians, the Governor and many local gentry held a banquet
in his honour. It was his birthday and he had a good time with all the fine
foods and drinks. He was a bit tipsy when he returned to his boathouse that
evening. After giving order to his guards not to allow anyone to come to
the boat he went inside the cabin for a nap.

It was in the deep of night when he woke up to do his toilet. After that
he could not go back to sleep as he had enough rest. The moon was shining
brightly on the river, so he decided to leave the boat and went for a stroll.
He changed into ordinary clothing and took an attendant with him. While
on land, they were aimlessly walking along a lonely path.

Suddenly he heard some one crying lamentably from a village nearby. Being
curious about the bemoaning in the middle of the night, he followed the
sound of wailing to the village and arrived at a thatched cottage. He told
his attendant to knock at the door which was not locked. So he entered the
cottage and saw a very old white-hair lady kowtowing to an altar.

He asked, " Why are you crying so pitifully?"

The old lady replied, "Today is the anniversary of the death of my deceased
husband and my son was supposed to offer sacrifices. But he has gone to
a distance place and cannot come back in time to pray, that is why I have
to offer the sacrifices at midnight. I have no food and wine to offer to
my late husband but water and wild herb."

He asked again,
"Who was your husband and how long had he been dead. If you don't have the
food and wine why don't you postpone it until tomorrow?

The old lady replied,
"My husband was a scholar. But he was so unlucky that he could not become
an official as he failed to pass the Examinations which were higher than
County Examinations. Today is the fifteenth day of the ninth moon which
is also the twentieth anniversary of his death and I cannot delay it until
tomorrow."
Upon hearing the old lady he was struck and stunned as he was born on this
day twenty years ago.

He asked her,
"If your husband was a scholar he must have left some literary works behind.
May I have your permission to look at them?"

The old lady showed him all the works written by her husband. He was amazed
to read the first essay which was word for word exactly the same as the
essay he wrote for the County Examinations. He read through all the essays
and discovered that the essays were the same as those he presented for his
Prefecture, Provincial, Metropolitan and Palace Examinations. Even the subjects
he gave to the candidates for the Examinations were among those essays.

He read the poem of epilogue and found the lines,

"For seven decades I have lived in this cottage.
In spite of studying for my whole life time, I failed to pass the examinations.

When I return in my next life I shall not be a frustrated person.
You will achieve fame and glory that I had failed so miserably.
Our identities will be found in the essays."

After reading the poem he realized the whole situation. He began to recall
the familiarity of this cottage. He asked the old lady the where about of
the old man's bed and his old table. Tears welled up in his eyes as he saw
the old bed and the table. The old lady was surprised to see him crying
and enquired what had happened to him. He told her that he was the reincarnation
of the old man.

The old lady told him, "I am now over eighty years old. Twenty years ago,
before my husband died he mentioned to me that he would come back in life
the second time after his death. So I bit him on his leg to make a secret
teeth mark as an evidence."

He took off his boot and showed her the teeth mark on his left leg. On seeing
the mark she cried prevalently. He consoled her that he had been rewarded
for what her husband had failed to achieve and promised her that he would
provide her with comfort.

Soon it was dawn and the son returned. She introduced him to her son and
related the whole story. The son was happy to see his father coming back
in life the second time and wanted to call him father. But he disagreed
with the son as he reasoned that it was his previous life that he was the
father.

He bought many acres of farm land and built a big house for the mother and
son who got married soon after.

After the Provincial Examinations were over he was transferred to Beijing
(北京). However, once in a blue moon he came to Fuzhou to visit her and
her son.

Written by a scholar called Sha Zhangbai (沙長白) who lived during the Qing
Dynasty (清朝1644AD to1911AD) and abridged by CHUNG Yoon-Ngan

Posted to Overseas Chinese Forum at asiawind.com
By CHUNG Yoon-Ngan (鄭永元)

Reply To This Message

Newer Topic | Older Topic

All messages are the expression of the contributors, who are solely responsible for the content. The forum does not endorse any views.

The Asiawind forums are provided to you by InTechTra Inc.