[254] A sham entertainment given by the Fu-t‘ai, or governor, to all the successful candidates. I say sham, because the whole thing is merely nominal; a certain amount of food is contracted for, but there is never anything fit to eat, most of the money being embezzled by the underlings to whose management the banquet is entrusted.
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[255] Much more so than at present.
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[256] Thereby invoking the Gods as witnesses. A common method of making up a quarrel in China is to send the aggrieved party an olive and a piece of red paper in token that peace is restored. Why the olive should be specially employed I have in vain tried to ascertain.
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[257] Of course there is no such thing as spelling, in our sense of the term, in Chinese. But characters are frequently written with too many or too few strokes, and may thus be said to be incorrectly spelt.
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[258] A ceremonial visit made on the third day after marriage.
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[259] Contrary to all Chinese notions of modesty and etiquette.
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[260] Alluding to a well-known expression which occurs in the Historical Record, and is often used in the sense of deriving advantage from connection with some influential person.
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[261] Without any regard to precedence, which plays quite as important a part at a Chinese as at a western dinner-party. In China, however, the most honoured guest sits at (what may be called) the head of the table, the host at the foot. I say “what may be called,” as Chinese dining-tables are almost invariably square, and position alone determines which is the head and which the foot. They are usually made to accommodate eight persons; hence the fancy name “eight-angel table,” in allusion to the eight famous angels, or Immortals, of the Taoist religion. (See No. V., [note 48].) Occasionally, round tables are used; especially in cases where the party consists of some such number as ten.
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[262] It is almost impossible to give in translation the true spirit of a Chinese antithetical couplet. There are so many points to be brought out, each word of the second line being in opposition both in tone and sense to a corresponding word in the first, that anything beyond a rough rendering of the idea conveyed would be superfluous in a work like this. Suffice it to say that Miao has here successfully capped the verse given; and the more so because he has introduced, through the medium of “sword” and “shattered vase,” an allusion to a classical story in which a certain Wang Tun, when drunk with wine, beat time on a vase with his sword, and smashed the lip.
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[263] This is the vel ego vel Cluvienus style of satire, his own verse having been particularly good.
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