An Inch of Ashes (51 page)
Authors: David Wingrove
tzu | | ‘Elder Sister’ |
wan wu | | literally ‘the ten thousand things’; used generally to include everything in creation, or, as the Chinese say, ‘all things in Heaven and Earth’ |
Wei | | Commandant of Security |
wei chi | | ‘the surrounding game’, known more commonly in the West by its Japanese name of |
wen ming | | a term used to denote civilization, or written culture |
wen ren | | the scholar-artist; very much an ideal state, striven for by all creative Chinese |
weng | | ‘Old man’. Usually a term of respect |
Wu | | a diviner; traditionally, these were ‘mediums’ who claimed to have special psychic powers. |
Wu | | ‘non-being’. As Lao Tzu says: ‘Once the block is carved, there are names.’ But the Tao is unnameable ( |
Wu ching | | the ‘Five Classics’ studied by all Confucian scholars, comprising the |
wu fu | | the five gods of good luck |
wu tu | | the ‘five noxious creatures’ – which are toad, scorpion, snake, centipede and gecko (wall lizard) |
Wushu | | the Chinese word for Martial Arts. It refers to any of several hundred schools. |
wuwei | | nonaction, an old Taoist concept. It means keeping harmony with the flow of things – doing nothing to break the flow |
ya | | homosexual. Sometimes the term ‘a yellow eel’ is used |
yamen | | the official building in a Chinese community |
yang | | the ‘male principle’ of Chinese cosmology, which, with its complementary opposite, the female |
yang kuei tzu | | Chinese name for foreigners, ‘Ocean Devils’. It is also synonymous with ‘Barbarians’ |
yang mei ping | | ‘willow plum sickness’, the Chinese term for syphilis, provides an apt description of the male sexual organ in the extreme of this sickness |
yi | | the number one |
yin | | the ‘female principle’ of Chinese cosmology (see |
yin mao | | pubic hair |
Ying kuo | | English, the language |
ying tao | | ‘baby peach’, a term of endearment here |
ying tzu | | ‘shadows’ – trained specialists of various kinds, contracted out to gangland bosses |
yu | | literally ‘fish’, but, because of its phonetic equivalence to the word for ‘abundance’, the fish symbolizes wealth. Yet there is also a saying that when the fish swim upriver it is a portent of social unrest and rebellion |
yu ko | | a ‘Jade Barge’, here a type of luxury sedan |
Yu Kung | | ‘Foolish Old Man!’ |
yu ya | | deep elegance |
yuan | | the basic currency of Chung Kuo (and modern-day China). Colloquially (though not here) it can also be termed |
yueh ch’in | | a Chinese dulcimer, one of the principal instruments of the Chinese orchestra |
Ywe Lung | | literally ‘The Moon Dragon’, the wheel of seven dragons that is the symbol of the ruling Seven throughout Chung Kuo: ‘At its centre the snouts of the regal beasts met, forming a rose-like hub, huge rubies burning fiercely in each eye. Their lithe, powerful bodies curved outward like the spokes of a giant wheel while at the edge their tails were intertwined to form the rim.’ (Chapter 4 of |
AUTHOR’S NOTE
T
he transcription of standard Mandarin into European alphabetical form was first achieved in the seventeenth century by the Italian Matteo Ricci, who founded and ran the first Jesuit Mission in China from 1583 until his death in 1610. Since then several dozen attempts have been made to reduce the original Chinese sounds, represented by some tens of thousands of separate pictograms, into readily understandable phonetics for Western use. For a long time, however, three systems dominated – those used by the three major Western powers vying for influence in the corrupt and crumbling Chinese Empire of the nineteenth century: Great Britain, France, and Germany. These systems were the Wade-Giles (Great Britain and America – sometimes known as the Wade System), the
École Française de l’Extrême Orient
(France) and the Lessing (Germany).
Since 1958, however, the Chinese themselves have sought to create one single phonetic form, based on the German system, which they termed the
hanyu pinyin fang’an
(Scheme for a Chinese Phonetic Alphabet), known more commonly as
pinyin,
and in all foreign language books published in China since 1 January 1979
pinyin
has been used, as well as being taught now in schools alongside the standard Chinese characters. For this work, however, I have chosen to use the older and to my mind far more elegant transcription system, the Wade-Giles (in modified form). For those now used to the harder forms of
pinyin,
the following may serve as a basic conversion guide, the Wade-Giles first, the
pinyin
after:
p for b
ch’ for q
ts’ for c
j for r
ch’ for ch
t’ for t
t for d
hs for x
k for g
ts for z
ch for j
ch for zh
The effect is, I hope, to render the softer, more poetic side of the original Mandarin, ill-served, I feel, by modern
pinyin
.
The translation of Li Shang-Yin’s ‘untitled poem’ is by A. C. Graham from his excellent
Poems of the Late Tang,
published by Penguin Books, London, 1965.
The translation of Wu Man-yuan’s ‘Two White Geese’ (Fei Yen’s song in Chapter 49) is by Anne Birrell from
New Songs from a Jade Terrace: An Anthology of Early Chinese Love Poetry
, published by George Allen & Unwin, London, 1982.
The quotations from Sun Tzu’s
The Art of War
are from the Samuel B. Griffith translation, published by Oxford University Press, 1963.
The translation from Nietzsche is by R. J. Hollingdale and is taken from
Beyond Good and Evil
(Prelude to a Philosophy of the Future), published by Penguin Books, London, 1973;
Ecce Home
(How One Becomes What One Is), published by Penguin Books, London, 1979.
D. H. Lawrence’s ‘Bavarian Gentians’ can be found in
Last Poems
(1932) but the version here is taken from an earlier draft of the poem.
The game of
wei chi
mentioned throughout this volume is, incidentally, more commonly known by its Japanese name of
Go
, and is not merely the world’s oldest game but its most elegant.
David Wingrove
April 1990
January 2013
ACKNOWLEDGMENTS
T
hanks must go, once again, to all those who have read and criticized parts of
An Inch of Ashes
during its long gestation. To my editors – Nick Sayers, Brian DeFiore, John Pearce and Alyssa Diamond – for their patience as well as their enthusiasm; to my Writers Bloc companions, Chris Evans, David Garnett, Rob Holdstock, Garry Kilworth, Bobbie Lamming and Lisa Tuttle; to Andy Sawyer, for an ‘outsider’s view’ when it was much needed, and, as ever, to my stalwart helper and first-line critic, Brian Griffin, for keeping me on the rails.
Thanks are due also to Rob Carter, Ritchie Smith, Paul Bougie, Mike Cobley, Linda Shaughnessy, Susan and the girls (Jessica, Amy and baby Georgia), and Is and the Lunatics (at Canterbury) for keeping my spirits up during the long, lonely business of writing this. And to ‘Nan and Grandad’, Daisy and Percy Oudot, for helping out when things were tight... and for making the tea!
Finally, thanks to Magma, IQ and the Cardiacs for providing the aural soundtrack to this.
- INTRODUCTION
- PART TWELVE An Inch of Ashes – Autumn 2206
- Chapter 49 The Pool in the Ruins
- Chapter 50 Shadows
- Chapter 51 The Veiled Light
- Chapter 52 Islands
- Chapter 53 King of the World
- PART THIRTEEN Artifice and Innocence – Spring 2207
- Chapter 54 The Feast of the Dead
- Chapter 55 Catherine
- Chapter 56 The Lost Bride
- IN TIMES TO COME...
- Character Listing
- Glossary of Mandarin Terms
- Author’s Note
- Acknowledgments