The short story "Pumpkin" is not something many people pay attention to, but the elderly man's homemade "broom" in the article has sparked heated discussions among classical literature enthusiasts.
Before writing this article, I asked the teachers in the county history compilation group what this thing is called. 👇
When I was a child, I often saw my grandmother using it to scrub the large iron pot.
Pour in a little hot water, use this bamboo brush to scrub in circles, and after cleaning, a few scoops easily lift the dirty water out of the pot. The technique is skilled, clean, and neat, like practicing Tai Chi.
Nowadays, non-stick pans cost hundreds or even thousands; the key to their expense is the non-stick coating. If you use this bamboo brush to scrub, it will damage the coating, and the pan will be ruined.
You can often still see these bamboo brushes being sold at the market, with young people treating them as handicrafts.
I remember there is another type of bamboo brush, a bit longer than the one for scrubbing pots, which can be used for cleaning toilets. People in Shanghai call it "Huan Xian," and this name seems to have a source, but I won't introduce it in this article.
So, what is the bamboo brush for scrubbing pots called in the local dialect?
"Xian Zhou" sounds like "Xian Zhao." When I asked a few elderly villagers, they each had different interpretations of which character "xian" refers to; some said it means wash, some said fresh, and others said immortal.
"Xi Zhou," literally understood, sounds similar and looks similar, referring to the bamboo brush used for washing pots. But in the local dialect, "xi" is pronounced as "qiang," meaning to wash clothes (洗衣服) or to take a bath (洗澡). According to this pronunciation, locals should call it "qiang zhou," which is clearly not the case. Therefore, this "wash" is a product of folk wisdom, translated by sound, shape, and meaning.
"Xian Zhou," when translated directly, sounds the same but has a different meaning. It can be understood as a small broom made from fresh bamboo for washing pots.
"Xian Zhou" also has the same sound but different meaning, and this term is even more interesting. It is said that every year on the 23rd or 24th day of the twelfth lunar month, people worship the stove and send the Kitchen God to heaven. On every household's stove, offerings of tea, pastries, and fruits are placed. The "Xian Zhou," as a tool for scrubbing pots on the stove, is naturally also offered, ensuring that cooking smells good and brings good fortune.
A word changes with the times. Ten years ago, "professor" and "expert" represented authority in the knowledge community; they would present the final opinions and results on certain viewpoints or events, but now they have become derogatory terms.
In the article "Pumpkin," I used "Xi Zhou" mainly for convenience. When I wanted to use the character "Xian," you would find that the input method is far away, making it cumbersome to find.
Currently, new words are as numerous as stars, with terms specific to the system; internet slang; and symbols that avoid sensitivity by using numbers and letters. Every year, official media releases a list of the year's popular internet terms. It is evident that creating new words is a trend in popular culture.
In the current global universal model data training set, Chinese corpus accounts for only 1.3%. In a country with a rich culture spanning five thousand years, claiming to be the number one in cultural output to the universe, why is the proportion of training data for artificial intelligence so low?
Professionals respond: High-quality corpus should possess seven characteristics: diversity, large scale, legality, authenticity, coherence, non-bias, and harmlessness.
Why can't Chinese corpus meet these seven characteristics? I have no answer.
Dialects are almost disappearing; why bother with which "xian"?
I think it's not a big deal; I can use any word, and even creating a new word is fine, as long as everyone understands that this word represents a cleaning tool made of bamboo for scrubbing pots.
But I see a few elderly people in the group tirelessly discussing the origin of "Xian," and while I am touched, I can't help but feel a bit sad. Writers today can only chew over an obscure character, with a sign on the desk saying "Do not discuss national affairs." It can only be this way; what else can be done?
Classical literature enthusiast Teacher Yuan said:
“Reading 'Xian Zhou' as 'Xi Zhou' is understandable, as the sounds are the same but the characters are different, or the sounds and characters are all different. However, writing 'Xian Zhou' as 'Xi Zhou' in the article is absolutely unacceptable, because the radicals and strokes of Chinese characters have their own rules for forming characters, such as pictographs, phonetic symbols, and meanings, which are established by convention. This is the difference between spoken and written language. Imagine if 'Xian Zhou' were written as 'Xi Zhou'; years later, if everyone has differing opinions and confusion, dictionary editors would have to painstakingly reference and cite, which could become a historical case.”
Folk culture researcher Teacher Jiang said:
“Choosing the character 'Xi' in dialects is their wisdom; cleaning tools do not remain limited to bamboo. They need to develop and evolve... the high-end vocabulary of literati (Xian). Common people use practical language (Xi). No need for pictographs; lacking culture (the dialect uses 'Xi'), which is understandable. Because 'Xian Zhou' originally means bamboo broom.”
My understanding is that if writing an essay, using "Xi" is fine; for academic articles, "Xian" is more appropriate.
Since the dictionary has this word, why create a new one? Seeking convenience and casually creating a new word can cause many inconveniences and misunderstandings for future generations. If everyone casually creates new words, a dialect vocabulary will become diverse, but where does it originate? Who can clarify?
My habit of casually creating new words may stem from: first, laziness; second, the inertia of converting traditional characters to simplified characters, where seeing an obscure character makes me want to replace it with a simpler one; third, ideological castration, where the old is deemed bad, and unfamiliar characters should be discarded, with modern people using modern characters.
My conclusion: If dialects have words with specific meanings, it is best to use the original words.
Years later, when encountering dialects, visitors will have to go to museums. Tourists seeing a "Xian Zhou" will be interested, and the guide will quickly step forward and say, "Everyone look closely, this is a brush made of bamboo, called 'Xian Zhou,' and it is said that every year during the lunar calendar..."