Tang Dynasty Crossing Guide: Chang'an and People's Life Manual

Chapter 5 Crossing the language barrier first (4)
Cold winter, light snow, under the semi-outdoor flag pavilion, next to the burning fireplace, a bottle of Kaiyuan Thirteen, is this sentiment enough for petty bourgeoisie?Three men who wrote poems were sitting together drinking and joking. When the door rang, a group of beauties from the entertainment industry who worked in the karaoke crowded in. They held an industry party with musical instruments, and sang the latest popular poems to compete and boast.

Three poets, Wang Changling, Gao Shi, and Wang Zhihuan, sat behind the girls and made a bet to see whose poems were sung the most.Wang Changling's "Cold Rain Lianjiang Night Entering Wu" has been sung, Gao Shi's "Tears Stained in Tears" has been sung, and Wang Zhihuan's poems have been sung for a long time. The girl swore: She must sing my poems.Sure enough, the girl said: "The yellow sand is far above the white clouds..." Wang Zhihuan was overjoyed and made fun of the other two.

"A farmer slave, am I delusional?" ① (You two peasants, do you see that I am not talking nonsense?)

Down with the feudal emperors who discriminate against peasants!Overthrow the well-known literati who look down on peasants... The guest asked again, it is understandable that the emperor, ministers, literati, and bureaucrats call each other "peasants". What if two peasants scold each other?The phrase "Tian She'er" scolded the other party, and incidentally scolded himself?

It doesn't matter, the ranking of the four types of people in ancient society was "scholar, farmer, worker, and merchant."

For example, you can see that after the gates of the city were opened early in the morning, the farmers on the street who brought vegetables to sell in the city collided with the small vendors pushing carts. "Business children", "market slaves" and "market rascals" are so lively. "Market ×" refers to those small businessmen who worked hard and did not have much wealth. At that time, this type of occupation was very discriminated against, and there were certain restrictions on examinations for civil servants.

①From Xue Yongruo's "Ji Yi Ji".

Then you ask again, now that two small traders are bumping into each other, how should they scold them?Is there a more humble occupation than "marketer"?Yes, call the other party "begging children", that is, "beggars", members of the gang of beggars.

In fact, almost every profession has specific curse words, like a monk who does not compete with the world, if he offends the bad guys, he will still be scolded by a series of "bald slaves", "thief bald" and "rough monks".

You crossed over and became a soldier?It can be said that the status of warriors in the Tang Dynasty was relatively high, but if they scolded the street, people would still have bad words to scold them when they were angry. It would be considered an insult to call them "veterans" and "soldier slaves".Or there are also senior generals who use "veteran" to be self-effacing and self-deprecating.

It is the most lofty "scholar"—those pretentious scholars, the people still give them a special curse word called "Ji Da" or "Cuo Da", when using it, the word "poor" is often added in front of it, and they are respectfully called "poor" Too poor to deal with."What does that mean?It is to describe these guys looking for trouble all day long, raising their shoulders, arching their arms, raising their eyebrows, frowning, criticizing this and talking about that, as if they have been poured with sour vinegar.

The above mentioned are all insults that attack professional identity, let’s talk about insulting people as animals.

The animal that the people of Tang are most willing to drag and forcefully plant for their enemies is a dog.

If you directly scold "Zhang San is Li Si's dog", usually you just say that Zhang San follows Li Si closely and is his lackey and thug, but it doesn't involve personal attacks or anything.But there are many derivatives of "dog" that can't hold back, let me give you a few examples.

"Dog and mouse generation" refers to despicable and lowly people.Kaiyuan famous minister Zhang said that he once scolded his political opponent Yu Wenrong: "This bastard, how can he do anything!"①
"Dead dog slave", this can be used to scold servants.People who are used to scolding "dead servants" when they see servants after time travel are strongly recommended to use this instead after traveling through Tang Dynasty. There is no word "slave" in the colloquial language of Tang Dynasty.

① From the fifth biography of "Old Tang Book".

"Pig dog/dog pig/dog pig" is also a rather harsh curse word.When I came to watch the Anshi Rebellion, there was a scolding battle between the generals of the two sides: "Does the thief know me?" "Who is it?" "I, the great general of the country, Bai Xiaode!"
"Shit", the meaning of this need not be explained.To give an example of how to use it, Feng Yansi, the poet of the Five Dynasties who wrote "The wind suddenly blows and wrinkles a pool of spring water", used to be the prime minister under Li Houzhu and his father. He was looked down upon by his colleagues, and his colleague Sun Sheng scolded Feng Yansi: "Is it okay to hold dog shit in a golden bowl and jade cup?"②
In addition to "dog", there are quite a few people who call people "××donkey" and "×× pig".For example, calling people "blind donkeys (repeatedly)", the great monk quite liked to use this word, claiming to scold people in an elegant and religious way without insight, incapable of thorough understanding, and inappropriate opinions.The complete swearing sentence: "I have been born blind! You have only made this point of view all your life, and you have betrayed these eyes. You are as silent as a donkey on a colt." ③ "I have been born blind! What juice do you look for on dry bones!" ④
If you don't bother to think about what kind of animal is appropriate when you curse at people, you can just call "animals" and "animals" directly.According to the "Sui Shu", Yang Jian, Emperor Wen of the Sui Dynasty, beat his bed and cursed before his death: "How can a beast (referring to Yang Guang) pay for such a big thing!"

①From "Old Tang Book" Biography Nine.

②From Volume 33 of "New History of the Five Dynasties".

③From Huiran's "Quotations of Zen Master Linji Huizhao".

④From Yixuan's "Linjilu".

A bit similar to "calling people as animals", you can also "calling people as ghosts".This is especially popular in the ghost stories of Tang legends. The protagonists often call the aliens "old ghosts" and "ghosts". "①.

"Yasha" is also a kind of inhuman creature often scolded by Tang Dynasty people.Simply scolding "Yasha" is often said to be unfilial, or to describe a person's terrible appearance.Calling "hagsha"... the meaning of this word has not changed much even today, and everyone understands it.

When it comes to "hagsha", let's talk about the words that specifically curse women, children and men.

As I said earlier, it was not popular for people in the Tang Dynasty to greet each other's female relatives, nor did they develop any distinctive swear words for women.However, calling someone (whether male or female) a "woman" is an insult in itself.

Calling a man a "woman" usually accuses him of being cowardly, weak, and a mother-in-law. For example, Tang Dynasty general Gao Xianzhi called his lieutenant Cheng Qianli "face like a man, heart like a woman"②.This kind of scolding is also very old, Zhuge Military Master once used this trick to bury Sima Yi.

Calling a woman a "woman" basically means "what do you know, you stupid bitch".To make a finer distinction, you can call an old woman an "×old woman", call a sassy girlfriend a "jealous woman" or a "shrew", call a maid a "bad maid", and so on.It should be noted that people in the Tang Dynasty seldom refer to their lower body intentionally when scolding women. Even words such as "whore" and "prostitute" are not used to scold women from good families (at least I have never seen them), but actually refer to those jobs in the red light district. By.

Those who scold children also directly scold "boy" and "children".If you want to add an adjective, it is more popular to add "milk smell". The words "stinky kid" were just contemptuous of children at first, but later they became scolding words for all age groups. Anyone who doesn't like it can point at the bearded man and scold "this kid" so and so on.

①From Zhang Hu's "Gan Gui": "I travel thousands of miles to the south of the Yangtze River, and I don't pay a penny when I return. The villagers laugh at me as a poor ghost, and I still look like Meng Haoran in Xiangyang."

②From the fourth biography of "Old Tang Book".Here's an example, let Bai Juyi come to make a cameo after being wronged.It is said that when Bai Juyi worked at Tang Xianzong Li Chun, he fully carried forward the style of his idol Wei Zheng, and constantly controlled His Majesty Li Chun not to do this or that.Li Chun generally respects Lao Bai, but of course there are times when he can't bear to complain.

"Boy Bai Juyi, I promoted him to fame and status, but he was rude to me. I really feel sorry for him!"① (In the end, this complaint was persuaded by other ministers.)
A term specifically used to scold men was invented creatively during the Sui and Tang Dynasties, and it was called "××汉".

That's right, the word "Han" in the words "good man", "strong man" and "Shandong Dahan" that are now very commendatory. In the Tang Dynasty, it was derogatory in most cases and was used to curse people.

It is said that the appearance of the word "××汉" has something to do with the melee between Hu and Han during the Southern and Northern Dynasties, but in the Tang Dynasty, this word has no ethnic attributes, and it is used to despise ordinary men.

If the word "Han" is added to a profession, it is a curse of professional attributes, such as "military man", and everyone should understand what it means.It’s not just people who work hard who are called “Han” cheaply. When Tang Gaozu Li Yuan accused Fang Xuanling and Du Ruhui of teaching his precious son badly, he once jumped to scold Fang Mou Duan as a “scholar”②.

The word "Han" does not need to add a profession, but adding other adjectives is also a curse word, such as "old man" and "idiot"... What are you talking about?There were no subways and buses in the Tang Dynasty.This "idiot" is not a "pervert who harasses women". You have watched too many Japanese love action movies."Idiot" in the Tang Dynasty was also a very popular curse word, meaning "big fool" and "fool".

① From the 110th biography of "Old Tang Book".

②From Biography No.14 of "Old Book of Tang"
If you don't add anything, just throwing out the word "Han" can swear at people.Once a lame general who wanted to rebel boasted like this: "Although (I am) suffering from foot problems, I am sitting in the capital, and the Han generation still dare not move."①
Well, count, how many categories of swearing have we heard?Occupational status, animal ghosts, gender and age, let’s make another category, ethnic origin.

Generally speaking, people in the Tang Dynasty were relatively open and did not discriminate against nomads very much, but when it comes to scolding, ethnicity is still a point of attack.It is a bit outdated to call each other "Hu", "狗" and "Rongdi". People in the Tang Dynasty most liked to scold "Liao".

①From Biography No.19 of "Old Tang Book".

why?It is probably because the blood of the Tang Dynasty emperor Lao Li's family has some elements of Northwest nomads with unknown proportions and suspicious origins.According to the division of traditional geographical nouns, scolding "Hu" and "Di" is likely to accidentally go to the emperor's house, while "Liao" generally refers to the ethnic minorities in the southwest, which has a high safety factor, so it became very popular.

The most famous example of scolding the word "Liao" is Her Majesty Empress Wu.When Tang Gaozong and Li Zhi discussed with the ministers to abolish the original wife, the queen, and establish the Wu family, the calligrapher and prime minister Chu Suiliang refused to agree. Dirty:

"Why don't you kill this dog!" ①
Chu Suiliang said: My family is from Qiantang, Zhejiang. Zhejiang is in the southeast, not in the southwest!you uneducated woman...

Anyway, in the Tang Dynasty, all southerners were particularly easy to be scolded as "little".In addition, those who are gloomy and unpredictable are called "dangerous liao", and those who look sorry are called "luvial face", and there are also a series of derivative words such as "liuzi", "liu slave", "liu thief" and "simple liao".

In addition to "Liao", family names such as "Turk", "Xi", "Jie" and "Gaoli" can be used to swear.

If you want to swear in the above limited swear words in style, level, innovation, fame or infamy, you can freely choose and combine them across categories.Recommend a relatively high-level swearword combination, which is about Gao Xianzhi, a famous general of the Tang army with Goguryeo blood.He offended his boss because of one thing, and the boss scolded him:

"Eat the dog's intestines Kollino! Eat the dog's feces Kollino!"②
Even more famous, and can be called the masterpiece of curse words in the Tang Dynasty, is the record of being scolded by His Majesty the Empress Wu Zetian through the ages.King Luo Bin, the title of the first foul-mouthed king in the Tang Dynasty, can't escape no matter what.

①From Volume 190 of "Zi Zhi Tong Jian".

②From the fourth biography of "Old Tang Book".

Those who belonged to the Wu family in the false Lin Dynasty were not meek in nature, and the land was cold.Xi Chong Taizong went down to Chen and tried to change clothes to serve him.It's almost the evening festival, and the erotic palace is dirty and chaotic.Secretly concealing the selfishness of the late emperor, plotting the love of the backyard.Seeing jealousy at the beginning, the frowning eyebrows refuse to make people;After practicing the Yuan Dynasty, he was in Huidi, and he trapped my lord in Jumo.With lizards as their heart, wolves become natural, close to evil and secluded, mutilate loyal and good people, kill sisters and brothers, kill kings and mothers.God and man suffer together, but heaven and earth cannot tolerate it.He still hides evil intentions and steals artifacts.The king's beloved son is secluded in other palaces; the thief's clan alliance entrusts him with important responsibilities... ①
The woman surnamed Wu who is now unjustly holding the political power is not docile at all, and her family background is also very humble.She used to be Emperor Taizong's maid, who seduced Taizong to have sex with her.Taizong was getting old, and she secretly messed with the crown prince again.After the crown prince ascended the throne, she took advantage of the new emperor and continued to have sex with the new emperor in secret, and finally changed from a nun to the new emperor's concubine and entered the palace.After entering the door, she began to be jealous and bully other concubines, just like the historical demon concubine Zheng Xiu framed the concubine of King Huai of Chu, using all kinds of despicable means to confuse the emperor and harm the concubines.She framed the emperor's original wife, the queen, to death. One person messed with father and son for two generations and poured dirty water on our royal family. In addition, her heart was as vicious as a poisonous snake and lizard, and her temperament was as fierce as a jackal. Her own brothers and sisters also killed the emperor and poisoned her own mother. All the gods in the sky and the people on the ground hated her, and heaven and earth would not tolerate her.She also harbored evil intentions, wanted to usurp the throne and become the emperor, imprisoned the late emperor's beloved son elsewhere, and made those bastard relatives and friends of hers high officials and entrusted them with heavy responsibilities...

① It comes from the famous article "Delegating Li Jingye to Discuss the Wu Family".

References & in-depth understanding recommendations for this article:
Liu Fugen. A Study of Chinese Cursed Words—A Brief History of Chinese Cursed Words. Hangzhou: Zhejiang People's Publishing House, 2008
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