This is the third and last essay in China Heritage<\/a>\u00a0that marks the Dingyou Year of the Rooster of 2017 \u4e01\u9149\u96de\u5e74 by focussing on the Rooster\/Chicken\u00a0\u96de<\/a> j\u012b<\/em>. The first two essays,\u00a0On Reading<\/a> and On Seeing<\/a>,\u00a0considered the subject\u00a0from the perspectives of classical literature, modern anecdote and through the\u00a0work of Huang Yongyu.\u00a0Below we pursue the Rooster from a number of other angles, both over time and in the context of Chinese cuisine, modern history and cultural usage. We also provide three appendices, one on cockfighting and two on the Rooster\/Cock\/Chicken\/Hen in the\u00a0Chinese language.<\/p>\n These essays are written as New Sinology Jottings<\/a> \u5f8c\u6f22\u5b78\u7b46\u8a18; they are, in part,\u00a0inspired by the genre of casual writings and loosely connected scribblings\u00a0\u7b46\u8a18 in literary Chinese that bring together material\u00a0on topics of interest to the author, and hopefully to readers.<\/p>\n \u2014 Geremie R. Barm\u00e9<\/a>, Editor<\/em>, China Heritage<\/a><\/p>\n<\/div>\n I would like to thank Duncan Campbell<\/a>, Ji Fengyuan<\/a>, Ryan Manuel<\/a>,\u00a0Christopher Rea<\/a>\u00a0and Sebastian Veg<\/a> for their comments and suggestions. As always, I am grateful to Lois Conner<\/a> for the use of her work, and for her account of\u00a0drinking chicken blood.<\/p>\n The Rooster has long been\u00a0regarded as the harbinger of a new start. Decorative pictures \u8cbc\u756b\u96de\u00a0and paper-cuts \u526a\u7d19 featuring the auspicious morning rooster \u5929\u96de \u2014 a creature touched by the\u00a0firsts rays of the dawn sun\u00a0\u2014\u00a0as well as a brood of other roosters and chickens, along with\u00a0a chattering\u00a0of chicks are pasted on doors and windows.<\/p>\n The Rooster is also known as ‘A Bird of Five Virtues’ \u4e94\u5fb7\u4e4b\u79bd. As the artist Huang Yongyu notes:<\/p>\n<\/div>\n The ancients claimed that the\u00a0ji<\/i> \u96de has Five Virtues: with its crown it appears civilised; with the spurs on its feet it is martial; faced with an enemy it courageously attacks; in the presence of food it displays its humanity by clucking for others to join in; while in the early hours\u00a0it never fails its duty. It’s intriguing that people share the same\u00a0qualities.\u00a0\u53e4\u4eba\u8aaa\uff0c\u96de\u6709\u4e94\u500b\u7279\u9ede\uff1a\u982d\u6234\u51a0\u8005\u6587\u4e5f\uff0c\u8db3\u640f\u8ddd\u8005\u6b66\u4e5f\uff0c\u6575\u5728\u524d\u6562\u95d6\u8005\u52c7\u4e5f\uff0c\u898b\u98df\u76f8\u547c\u8005\u4ec1\u4e5f\uff0c\u5b88\u591c\u4e0d\u5931\u6642\u4fe1\u4e5f\uff0c\u6211\u770b\u4eba\u82e5\u662f\u4e5f\u6709\u9019\u4e94\u756a\u8b1b\u7a76\uff0c\u61c9\u8a72\u662f\u76f8\u7576\u6709\u610f\u601d\u7684\u3002[See: The Year of the Rooster, On Seeing<\/a>.]<\/p><\/blockquote>\n<\/div>\n For all of these reasons, the first day of the lunar new year in China is also known as ‘Rooster Day’ \u96de\u65e5(the following days are named after the other eleven Zodiac Animals respectively).<\/p>\n<\/div>\n The dumpling \u9903\u5b50, pronounced\u00a0jiaozi,<\/em>\u00a0is one of the main foods enjoyed during\u00a0New Year celebrations. A\u00a0homophone with jiaozi<\/em>\u00a0\u4ea4\u5b50 (‘midnight transition’), the dumpling symbolises\u00a0the\u00a0new year replacing the old \u66f4\u6b72\u4ea4\u5b50. Dumplings made in\u00a0the shape of traditional gold ingots \u5143\u5bf6 also offer the promise of future wealth; and, family solidarity is celebrated\u00a0as relatives\u00a0and friends usually get together to made masses of dumplings for the meal eaten on New Year’s Eve \u5e74\u591c\u98ef. Dumplings with\u00a0egg filling \u86cb\u9903 are also a favourite, moreover,\u00a0they link this traditional food to the Auspicious Rooster of the first day of the new year.<\/p>\n Dumplings aside, commentators on the groaning bounty of Chinese New Year meals may also\u00a0refer to more recondite delicacies related to the Twelve\u00a0Zodiac Animals \u5341\u4e8c\u751f\u8096. Such\u00a0dishes include squeamish-inducing things like\u00a0Raw Monkey Brain \u751f\u5403\u7334\u8166, Multi-course Snake Banquets \u5168\u86c7\u5bb4, or, just for the gustatory delight of it (since, although fish represents plenty, as in the saying ‘excess every year’ \u5e74\u5e74\u6709\u9918[\u9b5a], the prawn is merely tangentially involved with New Year symbolism), the mouth-watering\u00a0death throws of Drunken Prawns in Shaoxing Wine \u7d39\u8208\u9189\u8766. Therefore, at the advent of\u00a0the Year of the Rooster we should not forget the now-rare Dragon Tiger Phoenix Stew\u00a0\u9f8d\u864e\u9cf3\u71f4, something reserved for diehard supplicants at the Temple of the Five Viscera \u796d\u4e94\u81df\u6bbf\u5802\u4e4b\u5f92, that is ‘foodies’.<\/p>\n Said to have originated in Liantang Township \u84ee\u5858\u93ae, Guangdong province, Dragon Tiger Phoenix Stew is traditionally made with snake \u91ce\u86c7, cat (or civet) \u91ce\u8c93 and free-range chicken or pheasant \u91ce\u96de\/\u5c71\u96de all caught in the wild. As contemporary commentators remark, however, ‘with the spread of more civilised habits and increased environmental awareness’ the dish\u00a0in its original form is now little more than a fading memory for true gourmands. (It lost further ground in 2003 when it was suspected that the civet cat may have been one of the origins\u00a0of the SARS epidemic.)<\/p>\n In popular culture, however, chicken remains\u00a0a constant. It plays a role\u00a0in\u00a0such films as Ang Lee’s celebrated 1994\u00a0Eat Drink Man Woman<\/em>\u00a0\u98f2\u98df\u7537\u5973 (see here<\/a> for two recipes from the 100 dishes in the film that use chicken) and Meng Jinghui’s \u5b5f\u4eac\u8f1d 2002\u00a0Chicken Poets<\/em><\/a>\u00a0\u50cf\u96de\u6bdb\u4e00\u6a23\u98db (for a clip from the film, see here<\/a>) as well as the Taiwan comic exchange or cross-talk, Chicken Feather Party<\/a>\u00a0\u96de\u6bdb\u64a2\/\u96de\u6bdb\u9ee8) [my thanks to Christopher Rea<\/a> for these last two references], and in the 2008 play Chicken Feathers and Garlic Skins are No Small Matter<\/a>\u00a0\u96de\u6bdb\u849c\u76ae\u6c92\u5c0f\u4e8b. Sebastian Veg reminds me of Liu Zhenyun’s \u5289\u9707\u96f2<\/a> celebrated 1992 novella, A World of Chicken Feathers<\/em>\u00a0\u4e00\u5730\u96de\u6bdb<\/a> (‘Peaux d’ail et plumes de poulet’ in Veg’s 2006 French translation), a detailed\u00a0and moving fictional account of life in and the frustrations of a Chinese work unit prior to the 1992 wave of radical economic reform. (A\u00a0popular TV adaptation\u00a0was\u00a0made on the basis of\u00a0this story and\u00a0Liu’s ‘Work Unit’ \u55ae\u4f4d by Feng Xiaogang \u99ae\u5c0f\u525b in 1995.) The title of Liu’s novella is also a reference to the expression ‘Chicken Feathers and Garlic Skins’ \u96de\u6bdb\u849c\u76ae, ‘insignificant things’ or ‘the makings of everyday life’.<\/p>\n ***<\/p>\n For better or worse,\u00a0the humble chicken also played a leading\u00a0role in the ultimate success of the 1949 Chinese revolution.<\/p>\n In his 1944 speech Serve the People<\/a>\u00a0\u70ba\u4eba\u6c11\u670d\u52d9<\/a>, a eulogy for a Party martyr, Communist Party Chairman Mao Zedong said:<\/p>\n All men must die, but death can vary in its significance. The ancient Chinese writer Sima Qian\u00a0said, ‘Though death befalls all men alike, it may be weightier than Mount Tai or lighter than a feather.’\u00a0To die for the people is weightier than Mount Tai, but to work for the fascists and die for the exploiters and oppressors is lighter than a feather. \u4eba\u7e3d\u662f\u8981\u6b7b\u7684\uff0c\u4f46\u6b7b\u7684\u610f\u7fa9\u6709\u4e0d\u540c\u3002\u4e2d\u570b\u53e4\u6642\u5019\u6709\u500b\u6587\u5b78\u5bb6\u53eb\u505a\u53f8\u99ac\u9077\u7684\u8aaa\u904e\uff1a\u4eba\u56fa\u6709\u4e00\u6b7b\uff0c\u6216\u91cd\u65bc\u6cf0\u5c71\uff0c\u6216\u8f15\u65bc\u9d3b\u6bdb\u3002\u70ba\u4eba\u6c11\u5229\u76ca\u800c\u6b7b\uff0c\u5c31\u6bd4\u6cf0\u5c71\u9084\u91cd\uff1b\u66ff\u6cd5\u897f\u65af\u8ce3\u529b\uff0c\u66ff\u525d\u524a\u4eba\u6c11\u548c\u58d3\u8feb\u4eba\u6c11\u7684\u4eba\u53bb\u6b7b\uff0c\u5c31\u6bd4\u9d3b\u6bdb\u9084\u8f15\u3002<\/p><\/blockquote>\n According to\u00a0Chen Yun \u9673\u96f2, a Party leader known in the 1980s and 1990s as one of the Eight Immortals<\/a> of Chinese Communism (in Chinese variously\u00a0\u4e2d\u5171\u516b\u5927\u5143\u8001\u3001\u4e2d\u5171\u516b\u8001 or \u6cbb\u570b\u516b\u8001), the chicken played a far more important role in Mao’s life than the goose feathers \u9d3b\u6bdb so famously featured in ‘Serve the People’. Chen Yun revealed a previously unknown detail: during the decade that Mao\u00a0led the Chinese revolution from the wartime guerrilla base at Yan’an in Shaanxi province, his personal cooks followed a\u00a0directive from\u00a0the Party’s Central Committee to\u00a0ensure that\u00a0he ate\u00a0chicken every day to help maintain his health (see here<\/a>).<\/p>\n It is claimed<\/a> that, after 1949, the chicken was also important as chefs constantly experimented with\u00a0new dishes to appeal to\u00a0the Chairman’s palate. At\u00a0a time of nationwide famine in the early 1960s, their efforts included a range of delectable chicken dishes (such as, \u9ec3\u6cb9\u96de\u5377\u3001\u8edf\u714e\u96de\u6392\u3001\u96de\u8089\u9905\u3001\u96de\u8089\u5143\u3001\u96de\u8089\u7d72\u3001\u7f50\u71dc\u96de\u3001\u7d05\u71dc\u96de\u3001\u8525\u982d\u71dc\u96de\u3001\u9752\u83dc\u71dc\u96de\u3001\u7d19\u5305\u96de\u3001\u96de\u897f\u654f\u58eb\u3001\u6930\u5b50\u96de\u3001\u5976\u6cb9\u96de).\u00a0After 1976, and following official\u00a0revelations about the mass poverty of the Maoist era, much was\u00a0made of Mao’s abstemious eating habits at the time, although from the list of chicken dishes above, it would seem that the Chairman hardly lacked culinary choice. Among\u00a0people living outside the privileged Party compounds located on prime real estate in\u00a0every Chinese city where the denizens enjoyed ‘special provisioning’ \u7279\u6b8a\u4f9b\u61c9 \u00a0(\u7279\u4f9b for short; see More Saliva than Tea \u53e3\u6c34\u591a\u904e\u8336<\/a>), the ‘Three Years of Natural Disasters’ \u4e09\u5e74\u81ea\u7136\u707d\u5bb3 in the early 1960s resulting from\u00a0Mao’s disastrous Great Leap Forward policies malnutrition and indeed\u00a0starvation<\/a>\u00a0were widespread.\u00a0As the\u00a0writer\u00a0Sang Ye \u6851\u66c4 records in one particular poignant vignette about those years, many families agonised over who got to eat the strictly\u00a0rationed chicken eggs:<\/p>\n We all had to do our best to protect our father. He worked night shifts at his newspaper and granny made special food for him. Sometimes he had a little meat, or maybe an egg. Nowadays, it’s hard to imagine how attractive the thought of an egg was. One time my dad couldn’t bring himself to eat the egg and my brother found it. He didn’t dare eat the whole thing, just pinched a little bit, but granny was furious and really told him off. It was such a serious crime. Our father was our provider and the mainstay of the family, both economically and emotionally. No matter what he had to keep his health up. He had Sundays off and seeing all of us kids looking like bags of bones, and mum and granny sick, he could never bring himself to eat the bit of good food we’d left for him and wanted to share it with us. But how could you divide one egg between eight hungry mouths? [From Sang Ye,\u00a01959 & its Aftermath: New Years Past<\/a>.]<\/p>\n My first experience of the majesty of the chicken in Chinese culture was also directly related to Mao. As a twenty-one year-old student at Fudan University in Shanghai in 1975, among classes in literature (the essays of Lu Xun) and theatre (select Revolutionary Operas) we were obliged to study Political Theory, lessons that not surprisingly focussed on the immutable wisdom of Mao Zedong Thought.<\/p>\n At the time much was made of combining book learning in the lecture hall with practical engagement with productive society, known as ‘open door schooling’ \u958b\u9580\u8fa6\u5b78 so, when it came to studying Chairman Mao’s 1937 philosophical tract On Contradiction<\/a>\u00a0\u77db\u76fe\u8ad6,\u00a0the\u00a0political commissar in charge of our instruction organised a class trip to a poultry slaughterhouse \u5bb0\u96de\u5834 on the outskirts of the city.<\/p>\n In the company of all of our teachers and cadre-minders, we set off in a bus to the slaughterhouse\u00a0where, for an afternoon, we solemnly studied ‘On Contradiction’ with the factory’s\u00a0Party Secretary and a number of ideologically advanced workers.<\/p>\n After tea and the obligatory statistic-laden introduction to the place,\u00a0we toured the slaughterhouse floor; needless to say that, as it was hosting foreigners, the factory\u00a0was an ‘advanced work unit’ \u5148\u9032\u55ae\u4f4d that boasted shiny automated machinery and well turned-out workers.<\/p>\n Back in the reception room our discussion, with a blackboard used for the graphic depiction of Mao’s ineffable philosophical interpretation of Hegel and Lenin, concentrated on the ‘dialectical relationship between the principal\u00a0contradiction and the secondary contradiction’\u00a0\u4e3b\u8981\u77db\u76fe\u548c\u6b21\u8981\u77db\u76fe\u7684\u8fa8\u8b49\u95dc\u4fc2 in the mechanised mass slaughter of chickens. After all, ‘On Contradiction’ contains the deathless statement:<\/p>\n It [materialist dialectics] holds that external causes are the condition of change and internal causes are the basis of change, and that external causes become operative through internal causes. In a suitable temperature an egg changes into a chicken, but no temperature can change a stone into a chicken, because each has a different basis.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n After the earnest recitation of this and other relevant passages from the Chairman’s philosophical tract and an in-depth discussion and dissection of the motivating ideas of ‘On Contradiction’, all clearly illustrated on the blackboard via a sketch of a chicken carcass, it was collectively determined that the secondary contractions in a chicken were to be found\u00a0in its feet (by which the bird\u00a0was to be trussed and hung up) while\u00a0the main contradiction could be located in its neck. It was this latter contradiction that was targeted for the efficient slaughter of the dangling birds by the use of a rotating blade sheathed in a brace that held the chicken still as it was conveyed on (what we, the foreign students, jokingly referred to as) its long march to meet Marx.<\/p>\n Celebrating yet another victory for Mao Thought, and daresay relieved that their foreign student charges hadn’t caused any trouble (or been too raucous in their mirth about this bizarre exercise in practical Maoist philosophy), on the way back to the university our teachers discussed with ill-disguised glee the delights of chicken dishes and various foods, many of which they admitted\u00a0had been unavailable for long years, mostly due to the lack of basic ingredients. It was an object lesson in Maoist politics; the radical disconnect between rhetoric and reality; foreign guest ritual; the politics of Chinese cuisine and sheer, yet impoverished, absurdity. I sometimes wonder whether\u00a0my penchant for what would eventually become New Sinology had its origins that day\u00a0at the slaughterhouse.<\/p>\n It was in the early post-Mao years that I first\u00a0heard about\u00a0the popular obsession with ‘injecting chicken blood’\u00a0\u6253\u96de\u8840. Many years later, my long-term collaborator the oral historian Sang Ye wrote about\u00a0this along with other Chinese medical fads. In his essay\u00a0Injecting Chicken Blood<\/a>, the writer and translator Joel Martinsen<\/a>\u00a0quotes Sang Ye’s description of the practice:<\/p>\n People carried young roosters to the hospital, where several millilitres of chicken blood would be drawn and then injected into their body. Doing this once a week would make you aggressive, and as powerful as an ox.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n Chicken blood injections began gaining popularity in the 1960s, so much so that they were\u00a0banned by the Ministry of Health\u00a0as being unhygienic and dangerous. After 1966, the mass dictatorship of the Cultural Revolution era saw a revival of ‘chicken blood therapy’ \u96de\u8840\u7642\u6cd5, along with the denunciation of the Ministry of Health (which was derided by no less an authority than Mao Zedong for\u00a0being totally out of touch with common people; he said it was little better than a Ministry\u00a0of Urban\u00a0Gentlemen’s Health<\/a>\u00a0\u57ce\u5e02\u8001\u723a\u885b\u751f\u90e8). Always adroit in following the prevailing political winds, the usually rational Premier Zhou Enlai now took the side of the broad masses\u00a0and declared:\u00a0‘The Central Ministry of Health’s handling of chicken blood therapy is a violation of Mao Zedong Thought!’<\/p>\n As Joel Martinsen\u00a0writes:<\/p>\n Throughout the next decade, people lined up outside dispensaries, rooster in hand, to receive injections of chicken blood, but once the Cultural Revolution ended, the practice was abandoned along with so much else from that era. When\u00a0xiangsheng<\/i>\u00a0performers Jiang Kun and Li Wenhua satirized the madness over kombucha and chicken blood in the painfully didactic skit Don’t Be Superstitious<\/a>\u00a0\u83ab\u8ff7\u4fe1, chicken blood therapy was only a memory, and by the time Sang Ye’s article appeared [in 1992], it had been all but forgotten, kept alive only as a colloquial expression meaning jittery or agitated: ‘I’m so excited it’s like I’ve been injected with chicken blood’ \u6211\u50cf\u6253\u4e86\u9e21\u8840\u4e00\u6837\u5174\u594b. The treatment’s origin had been lost, if it had known at all during its heyday. A popular rumor, which Sang Ye relates in his article, credited chicken blood injections to a Nationalist official who, facing the execution after the revolution, had attempted to trade the secret in exchange for his life. [From Joel Martinsen, Injecting Chicken Blood<\/a>.]<\/p><\/blockquote>\n When the photographer Lois Conner, whose work appears on\u00a0this site, broke her arm in Beijing after having slipped on black ice following her attendance at a performance of the North Korean opera The Flower Girl<\/a>\u00a0\u8ce3\u82b1\u59d1\u5a18, her friends, a noted husband-wife artist team, insisted on killing a chicken and made her\u00a0drink a concoction made up of chicken blood\u00a0and\u00a0herbs they got from what she calls ‘a local\u00a0witch doctor’ \u5eb8\u91ab in the dead of night. Her friends\u00a0assured her that chicken blood helps bones mend quickly. On reading the draft\u00a0account of\u00a0‘Injecting Chicken Blood’ above, Lois remarked:\u00a0‘My arm healed perfectly, so much so, that when I fractured\u00a0it again a decade later, they couldn\u2019t even find where it had been broken before.’ (In dynastic China, chicken blood also featured in the tortuous practice of foot-binding. Young girls’ feet were tightly bound in long bandages that had been soaked in chicken blood. This supposedly reduced the agony of the child as\u00a0her\u00a0feet grew and the bones were crushed into the desired shape of a ‘three-inch lotus’ \u4e09\u5bf8\u91d1\u84ee.)<\/p>\n Now, for some more anodyne facts about the chicken in the Chinese world:<\/p>\n The chicken, and its preparation for slaughter, is such a feature of Chinese life that in 1991 the artist Zhang Peili \u5f35\u57f9\u529b made it the centrepiece of one of his earliest and most famous works of video art, ‘The Correct Procedure for Washing a Chicken’.<\/p>\n Chicken and eggs are an important ingredient in many Chinese recipes. Velveting chicken meat<\/a>, once a mysterious process for any but aficionados of Chinese cuisine, is now commonly used in international cooking. And the names of many dishes, and how to make them, are now widely know. Among the most common are: Egg Foo-yung \u8299\u84c9\u96de\u86cb, Hainan Chicken Rice \u6d77\u5357\u96de\u98ef, Phoenix Claws \u9cf3\u722a (eaten at Yum-cha, or as a Dim-sum), General Tso’s Chicken \u5de6\u5b97\u96de, Kung-pao Chicken \u5bae\u4fdd\u96de\u4e01.<\/p>\n Perhaps the simplest recipe is ‘stirred eggs’ (aka ‘fried eggs’) \u7092\u96de\u86cb which, my colleague Duncan M. Campbell reminds me, is notably described in extraordinary detail by the great Chinese linguist Yuen Ren Chao<\/a> \u8d99\u5143\u4efb. As Chao’s wife, Buwei Yang Chao<\/a>\u00a0\u694a\u6b65\u5049, remarks in her 1945 book\u00a0How To Cook and Eat in Chinese <\/i><\/a>\u4e2d\u570b\u98df\u8b5c (which, among other things, gave the English language the expression ‘stir-fry’): ‘As this is the only dish my husband cooks well, and he says that he either cooks a thing well or not at all, I shall let him tell how it is done.’ The author then offers\u00a0Chao’s method (one reproduced by various online writers<\/a>). For our purposes, the most delectable detail from the famed scholar of the Chinese language is the last paragraph of his\u00a0recipe:<\/p>\n To test whether the cooking has been done properly, observe the person served. If he utters a voiced bilabial nasal consonant with a slow falling intonation, it is good. If he utters the syllable yum<\/em> in reduplicated form, it is very good. \u2015 Y. R. C.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/blockquote>\n Although the obsession with Chicken Soup for\u00a0the Soul<\/a> \u5fc3\u9748\u96de\u6e6f would eventually reach China, the Western chicken first landed in the People’s Republic in 1987. Operating under the Chinese name Kendeji<\/em> \u80af\u5fb7\u57fa, the first KFC outlet for deep-fried chicken encased in batter and salty spices opened at Qianmen, just off Tiananmen Square in the centre of the Chinese capital Beijing, in November 1987. In the new millennium it increased its popular appeal by adding local street foods such as crullers \u6cb9\u689d and sesame flat-breads \u71d2\u9905 to its menu. In 2015, KFC boasted over 5000 outlets in the People’s Republic. A year earlier, in 2014, a short-lived online Anti-Chicken Soup for the Soul<\/a>\u00a0satirical push saw the lampooning of\u00a0the feel-good nostrums of the twenty-year\u00a0old American self-help fad.<\/p>\n More traditional, and common, Chinese recipes and foods using chicken and eggs include the following (the names of dishes are, for the most part, linked to the popular culinary site Xinshipu<\/a> \u5fc3\u98df\u8b5c):<\/p>\n For more recipes that use\u00a0various kinds of chicken meat (from hens, chicks to roosters, pheasants and so on), see under Chicken<\/a>\u00a0\u96de\u8089 on the Xinshipu<\/a> site.\u00a0Numerous sites offer Chinese recipes in English, among others,\u00a0Fuchsia Dunlop<\/a> is always a reliable guide.<\/p>\n In North America General Tso’s Chicken, a Taiwanese invention of the 1950s, is so popular (in fact, some claim it is as ‘American as Apple Pie’) that it was used as the theme of\u00a0The Search for General Tso<\/a><\/em>, a documentary film about Chinese American cuisine that premi\u00e8red\u00a0at the Tribeca Film Festival in 2014. The film was itself inspired by Jennifer 8. Lee’s book,\u00a0The Fortune Cookie Chronicles<\/a><\/em>, published in 2008.<\/p>\n The chicken features in popular Internet lingo as well. In recent years, two of the most common online expressions are muji<\/em>\u00a0\u6bcd\u96de, an approximation in Standard\u00a0Chinese of the Cantonese \u5514\u77e5, or\u00a0ng tsi<\/em>: ‘[I] dunno’. And,\u00a0l<\/em>aji\u00a0<\/i>\u8fa3\u96de, written as ‘chilli chicken’, a homophone for\u00a0\u5783\u573e: tosh, garbage or rubbish, a popular expression among\u00a0people both on- and offline.<\/p>\n Chickens, roosters, chicks and fowl also squawk, flutter and peck their way through numerous real and virtual interactions in Chinese, filling the language with metaphorical terms and expressions. Below\u00a0we offer a few common sayings and expressions featuring the word ji\u00a0<\/em>\u96de\/\u9e21 which better reflect, or\u00a0are\u00a0used to describe, lived\u00a0reality (click on the expression for an explanation and an English translation):<\/p>\n For\u00a0a more comprehensive\u00a0list of general chicken\/rooster-related terms, refer to\u00a0Appendix I, and for other chicken-related\u00a0expressions and set-phrases, see Appendix II.<\/p>\n We began this three-part consideration of The Year of the Rooster with a quotation from the ancient oracle,\u00a0I Ching<\/em>: ‘Cock’s crow rises to heaven<\/a>‘\u00a0\u7ff0\u97f3\u767b\u4e8e\u5929, pointing to\u00a0the folly of unrealistic aspiration. As the twelfth-century thinker Zhu Xi comments:<\/p>\n The cock itself cannot rise to Heaven, but its Aspiration is to do so. The Steadfastness is misplaced; the true situation has not been taken into account. This will lead to Calamity.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n As cocksure leaders strut the world stage, we should re-consider\u00a0the artist Huang Yongyu’s wariness and dislike of cockfighting (see his ‘Boundless Pleasure’ \u5176\u6a02\u7121\u7aae in The Year of the Rooster, On Seeing<\/a>), an ancient Chinese pastime. In Appendix III, we offer an essay by\u00a0Zhang Dai \u5f35\u5cb1 (1597-1689) who nearly lost himself in his passion for cockfighting \u9b2a\u96de.<\/p>\n We end these three essays dedicated to The Year of the Rooster, with a chicken being killed to feed a disciple of Confucius, and a parable from the incomparable master\u00a0Zhuangzi \u838a\u5b50 (fourth\u00a0century BCE) on the virtues of being like a wooden cock. These two episodes, drawn from ancient texts, may help those who are searching for\u00a0ways to deal with\u00a0modern-day\u00a0dilemmas.<\/p>\n ***<\/p>\n In one of the most famous passages in\u00a0The Analects<\/em>, Zilu, one of the Master’s favourite disciples, encounters a recluse: a man who has given up on the world and its chaotic goings-on.\u00a0The recluse criticises Zilu\u00a0for his ignorance: he can do nothing practical and can’t even distinguish the different grains that people eat. The recluse then wonders out loud: What kind of duffer could have trained\u00a0such a disciple?\u00a0Nonetheless, he remains\u00a0civil and\u00a0entertains the wayward Confucian disciple by killing a chicken for dinner and introducing him to his two sons<\/p>\n For his part, Confucius, the political thinker obsessed with social good and political order, later tells Zilu that such a man has abandoned the world, thereby betraying his duty to contribute to the society, even if he knows that such service may do\u00a0no good.<\/p>\n To serve society through service at court, even under a bad ruler, or to\u00a0retreat from a strife-ridden world to pursue self-cultivation in times of disorder has been a recurring theme in\u00a0Chinese thought, literature and politics through the ages. This ancient dilemma rings as true today,\u00a0be it in China or elsewhere, as it did in the past.<\/p>\n Traveling with Confucius, Zilu fell behind. He met an old man who was carrying on his shoulder a basket hanging from his staff. \u5b50\u8def\u5f9e\u800c\u5f8c\uff0c\u9047\u4e08\u4eba\uff0c\u4ee5\u6756\u8377\u84e7\u3002<\/p>\n Zilu asked him: \u2018Sir, have you seen my master?\u2019 The old man said: \u2018You do not toil with your four limbs, you cannot even distinguish between the five sorts of grain \u2014 who can be your master?\u2019 He planted his staff in the ground and started weeding. \u5b50\u8def\u554f\u66f0\uff1a\u5b50\u898b\u592b\u5b50\u4e4e\uff1f\u4e08\u4eba\u66f0\uff1a\u56db\u9ad4\u4e0d\u52e4\uff0c\u4e94\u7a40\u4e0d\u5206\u3002\u5b70\u70ba\u592b\u5b50\uff1f\u690d\u5176\u6756\u800c\u82b8\u3002<\/p>\n Zilu watched him respectfully. \u5b50\u8def\u62f1\u800c\u7acb\u3002<\/p>\n The old man kept him for the night, killed a chicken, cooked some millet, and presented his two sons to him. \u6b62\u5b50\u8def\u5bbf\uff0c\u6bba\u96de\u70ba\u9ecd\u800c\u98df\u4e4b\uff0c\u898b\u5176\u4e8c\u5b50\u7109\u3002<\/p>\n The next day, Zilu resumed his journey and reported to Confucius. \u660e\u65e5\uff0c\u5b50\u8def\u884c\u4ee5\u544a\u3002<\/p>\n The Master said: \u2018The man you met is a hermit.\u2019 He sent Zilu back to seek for him, but on arriving at his place, Zilu found that the old man was gone. \u5b50\u66f0\uff1a\u96b1\u8005\u4e5f\u3002\u4f7f\u5b50\u8def\u53cd\u898b\u4e4b\u3002\u81f3\u5247\u884c\u77e3\u3002<\/p>\n Zilu said: \u2018It is not right to withdraw from public life. One cannot ignore the difference between age and youth, and even less the mutual obligations between prince and subject. One cannot discard the most essential human relationships, simply to preserve one\u2019s purity. A gentleman has a moral obligation to serve the state, even if he can force that the Way will not prevail.\u2019 \u5b50\u8def\u66f0\uff1a\u4e0d\u4ed5\u7121\u7fa9\u3002\u9577\u5e7c\u4e4b\u7bc0\uff0c\u4e0d\u53ef\u5ee2\u4e5f\uff1b\u541b\u81e3\u4e4b\u7fa9\uff0c\u5982\u4e4b\u4f55\u5176\u5ee2\u4e4b\uff1f\u6b32\u6f54\u5176\u8eab\uff0c\u800c\u4e82\u5927\u502b\u3002\u541b\u5b50\u4e4b\u4ed5\u4e5f\uff0c\u884c\u5176\u7fa9\u4e5f\u3002\u9053\u4e4b\u4e0d\u884c\uff0c\u5df2\u77e5\u4e4b\u77e3\u3002<\/p><\/blockquote>\n \u2014 \u300a\u8ad6\u8a9e\u300b\u5fae\u5b50, Simon Leys, trans.,\u00a0The Analects of Confucius<\/i>, ***<\/p>\n Zhuangzi, the great fourth\u00a0century BCE thinker and story-teller, provides a counterpoint to the Confucian blather of the last 2,300 years. He recounts\u00a0how Ji Xingzi trained a fighting cock\u00a0to face down opponents fearlessly. Perhaps this is the best way to prepare for the coming years of conflict:<\/p>\n Ji Xingzi was training gamecocks for the king. After ten days the king asked if they were ready. \u7d00\u6e3b\u5b50\u70ba\u738b\u990a\u9b25\u96de\u3002\u5341\u65e5\u800c\u554f\uff1a\u96de\u5df2\u4e4e\u3002<\/p>\n ‘Not yet. They’re too haughty and rely on their nerve.’ \u672a\u4e5f\uff0c\u65b9\u865b\u618d\u800c\u6043\u6c23\u3002<\/p>\n Another ten days and the king asked again. \u5341\u65e5\u53c8\u554f\u3002<\/p>\n ‘Not yet. They still respond to noises and movements.’ \u66f0\uff1a\u672a\u4e5f\uff0c\u7336\u61c9\u5411\u666f\u3002<\/p>\n Another ten days and the king asked again. \u5341\u65e5\u53c8\u554f\u3002<\/p>\n ‘Not yet. They still look around fiercely and are full of spirit.’ \u66f0\uff1a\u672a\u4e5f\uff0c\u7336\u75be\u8996\u800c\u76db\u6c23\u3002<\/p>\n Another ten days and the king asked again. \u5341\u65e5\u53c8\u554f\u3002<\/p>\n ‘They’re close enough. Another cock can crow and they show no sign of change. Look at them from a distance and you’d think they were made of wood. Their virtue is complete. Other cocks won’t dare face them, but will turn and run.’ \u66f0\uff1a\u5e7e\u77e3\u3002\u96de\u96d6\u6709\u9cf4\u8005\uff0c\u5df2\u7121\u8b8a\u77e3\uff0c\u671b\u4e4b\u4f3c\u6728\u96de\u77e3\uff0c\u5176\u5fb7\u5168\u77e3\uff0c\u7570\u96de\u7121\u6562\u61c9\u8005\uff0c\u53cd\u8d70\u77e3\u3002<\/p><\/blockquote>\n \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0\u2014 \u300a\u838a\u5b50\u300b\u9054\u751f,\u00a0Burton Watson, trans.,\u00a0Zhuangzi<\/em>, Mastering Life<\/a>.<\/p>\n (Today, the expression ‘dumb as a wooden cock’ \u5446\u5982\u6728\u96de is used to express surprise, stunned silence or just plain stupidity. Sometimes, however, ‘great wisdom seems like folly, great cleverness appears\u00a0clumsy’ \u5927\u667a\u82e5\u611a\uff0c\u5927\u5de7\u82e5\u62d9.)<\/p>\n***<\/span><\/h4>\n
Acknowledgements<\/strong><\/h4>\n
\n<\/div>\n![\"The](\"https:\/\/chinaheritage.net\/wp-content\/uploads\/2017\/01\/\u9e21\u5b57\u79cd\u79cd.png\")
<\/a>\n
![\"A](\"https:\/\/chinaheritage.net\/wp-content\/uploads\/2017\/01\/\u6e05\u6390\u4e1d\u73d0\u7405\u5929\u9e21\u5c0a.png\")
<\/a>
\nKilling and Consuming<\/h3>\n
![\"Dragon](\"https:\/\/chinaheritage.net\/wp-content\/uploads\/2017\/01\/\u9f99\u864e\u51e4.png\")
<\/a>\n
![\"Highest](\"https:\/\/chinaheritage.net\/wp-content\/uploads\/2017\/01\/\u9e21\u86cb\u4f9b\u5e94\u7968.png\")
<\/a>
\n<\/blockquote>\nFowl Dialectics<\/h3>\n
![\"Chickens](\"https:\/\/chinaheritage.net\/wp-content\/uploads\/2017\/01\/\u5bb0\u9e21\u573a.png\")
<\/a>![\"Snowflake](\"https:\/\/chinaheritage.net\/wp-content\/uploads\/2017\/01\/fullsizeoutput_866-292x300.jpeg\")
<\/a>![\"Recipes](\"https:\/\/chinaheritage.net\/wp-content\/uploads\/2017\/01\/fullsizeoutput_87a-714x1024.jpeg\")
<\/a>
\nInjecting and\u00a0Imbibing<\/h3>\n
\n
![\"Chicken](\"https:\/\/chinaheritage.net\/wp-content\/uploads\/2017\/01\/Chicken-Blood-Therapy-300x216.jpg\")
<\/a>![\"Yangshuo,](\"https:\/\/chinaheritage.net\/wp-content\/uploads\/2017\/01\/CH91-rooftop-w-chickens-copy-1024x405.jpg\")
<\/a>![\"'Free-range](\"https:\/\/chinaheritage.net\/wp-content\/uploads\/2017\/01\/CHickens_BJ_DSC6795-copy-1024x683.jpg\")
<\/a>
\nEating<\/h3>\n
\n
\n
\n
![\"dali_uncroppedchickens_dsc4310\"](\"https:\/\/chinaheritage.net\/wp-content\/uploads\/2017\/01\/Dali_uncroppedchickens_DSC4310.jpg\")
\nSpeaking<\/h3>\n
\n
\n
![\"Chickens](\"https:\/\/chinaheritage.net\/wp-content\/uploads\/2017\/01\/ENK3312_chickens.jpg\")
\nIn an\u00a0Age of the Cocksure<\/h3>\n
![\"Zhong](\"https:\/\/chinaheritage.net\/wp-content\/uploads\/2017\/01\/Zhong-Kui-and-Entourage-detail.jpeg\")
<\/a>
\nNew York: Norton, 1997, pp.91-92.<\/p>\n![\"Zhong](\"https:\/\/chinaheritage.net\/wp-content\/uploads\/2017\/01\/\u949f\u9997.jpeg\")
<\/a>