Ex-official helps preserve old Jiading proverbs
By Wang Lihui and Xu Wei |
April 30, 2012, Monday
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Print Edition
Print Edition
IN the 1950s when Zhou Ping, an official with the Youth League Committee of Jiading District, was observing the people's living condition in the Jiading villages, he picked up a lot of interesting proverbs and slangs, and kept notes of what the farmers said. Unfortunately those notes were later lost in a fire.
Some 30 years later, Zhou, based on his memory, sorted out 8,000 proverbs and slangs from Jiading local residents. Those proverbs and slangs were usually spoken by the locals with Jiading dialect. Starting two years ago, a book was compiled based on Zhou's collection.
Professor Fan Xiao from the Department of Chinese Language and Literature at Fudan University, who is also a native of Jiading, made an annotation and international phonetics for each term or expression. The book, after five revisions, will be finally published later this year.
When Zhou walked around farms he was attracted by a proverb said by the farmers - "1-foot-high wheat is scared of water with only 1 inch of depth." He had no idea what it meant and asked farmers to explain. He was told even a little water poses a threat to the growth of 1-foot-high wheat. The proverb vividly depicts the farmers' planting experience and impressed Zhou. He took note of the proverb and in the following decade he recorded all such terms he came across.
In 1965, Zhou spent half a year transcribing 5,000 terms with painstaking neatness. But he didn't expect that these valuable materials would accidentally be lost in a fire.
He was later engaged in the building of Jiading Cinema in the early 1980s and appointed the first general manager of the cinema. His life would not mingle with proverbs and slangs until an important decision made by the Jiading government in 1987. The government decided to compile books on Jiading's folk stories, ballads and proverbs. Zhou was asked to compile a book about Jiading's proverbs.
He had to rewrite the proverbs based on memory with the help of his wife Zhu Bingxin.
To help recall, Zhou also referred proverbs from other regions in China. He found that there were certain rules about proverbs despite their different expressions. In two years, he sorted out 8,000 proverbs.
Before his retirement in the late 1980s, Zhou also compiled a 281-page book, "The Selection of Jiading Dialect." The book includes more than 6,000 terms covering 22 categories closely related to the daily life, many of which are rarely used these days in Jiading.
"Today, the Jiading dialect has evolved into a language that mixes regional, out-of-town and even foreign terms," Zhou says. "More and more terms originated in Jiading are now disappearing as society changes."
In addition, a lot of childhood games have now vanished. To provide today's children an insight into the games of their parents and grandparents, Zhou began to write a book in November 2010 about traditional childhood games that were played in Jiading. He has already completed a 100,000-word manuscript, introducing 164 games.
From the beginning Zhou thought it was "interesting" to record the Jiading's proverbs and folk culture. Yet he later realized the importance of his work. "Folk culture is just like scattered pearls in the mud," he said. "When someone picks them up patiently and makes a string of pearls, they will shine brilliantly."
Some 30 years later, Zhou, based on his memory, sorted out 8,000 proverbs and slangs from Jiading local residents. Those proverbs and slangs were usually spoken by the locals with Jiading dialect. Starting two years ago, a book was compiled based on Zhou's collection.
Professor Fan Xiao from the Department of Chinese Language and Literature at Fudan University, who is also a native of Jiading, made an annotation and international phonetics for each term or expression. The book, after five revisions, will be finally published later this year.
When Zhou walked around farms he was attracted by a proverb said by the farmers - "1-foot-high wheat is scared of water with only 1 inch of depth." He had no idea what it meant and asked farmers to explain. He was told even a little water poses a threat to the growth of 1-foot-high wheat. The proverb vividly depicts the farmers' planting experience and impressed Zhou. He took note of the proverb and in the following decade he recorded all such terms he came across.
In 1965, Zhou spent half a year transcribing 5,000 terms with painstaking neatness. But he didn't expect that these valuable materials would accidentally be lost in a fire.
He was later engaged in the building of Jiading Cinema in the early 1980s and appointed the first general manager of the cinema. His life would not mingle with proverbs and slangs until an important decision made by the Jiading government in 1987. The government decided to compile books on Jiading's folk stories, ballads and proverbs. Zhou was asked to compile a book about Jiading's proverbs.
He had to rewrite the proverbs based on memory with the help of his wife Zhu Bingxin.
To help recall, Zhou also referred proverbs from other regions in China. He found that there were certain rules about proverbs despite their different expressions. In two years, he sorted out 8,000 proverbs.
Before his retirement in the late 1980s, Zhou also compiled a 281-page book, "The Selection of Jiading Dialect." The book includes more than 6,000 terms covering 22 categories closely related to the daily life, many of which are rarely used these days in Jiading.
"Today, the Jiading dialect has evolved into a language that mixes regional, out-of-town and even foreign terms," Zhou says. "More and more terms originated in Jiading are now disappearing as society changes."
In addition, a lot of childhood games have now vanished. To provide today's children an insight into the games of their parents and grandparents, Zhou began to write a book in November 2010 about traditional childhood games that were played in Jiading. He has already completed a 100,000-word manuscript, introducing 164 games.
From the beginning Zhou thought it was "interesting" to record the Jiading's proverbs and folk culture. Yet he later realized the importance of his work. "Folk culture is just like scattered pearls in the mud," he said. "When someone picks them up patiently and makes a string of pearls, they will shine brilliantly."
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