As the deity who grants success in the imperial examinations, Kui Xing 魁星 is revered as the God of Literature. The image of Kui Xing is often presented as a spirit holding a writing brush in one hand and a …
Pun Design ： Writing brush + Ingot + Kui Xing Punning Details： -Writing brush 笔 bi is a pun on 必 bi meaning ‘certainly’ or ‘necessarily’; -Ingot 锭ding is homophonous with 定 ding meaning ‘surely’ or ‘inevitably’; – ‘kui’ refers …
Continue reading “You will certainly come out first in the imperial examinations”
The term ‘Kui Xing’ originally referred to the North Star (北斗 Bei Dou). As stated in the Historical Records by Sima Qian (司马迁 145BCE – ?) , ‘Kui is the first star of the Great Dipper constellation’. Therefore, Kui also …
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As a young man, Lv Dongbin (吕洞宾, or Lü Dongbin) passed several rounds of civil-service examinations and was twice appointed as a county magistrate. After being bored with officialdom, he went to become a recluse in the mountains. Not until …
Zhongli Quan (钟离权, or 汉钟离 Han Zhongli) is regarded as the most eminent among the Daoist Eight Immortals. Respected as ‘Zhengyang Zushi (正阳祖师)’ or the ‘Grand Master with Pure Yang Energy’, he is one of the founders of the northern …
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More often than not, traditional Chinese motifs or symbols are not receiving their deserved attention, being given simplistic or inadequate labels and inaccurate explanations in our museums, catalogues, or even scholarly writing. The treatment of many pictorial representations of the thousand-year-old literary anecdote ‘A bamboo counter is being added to the house in the sea (海屋添筹 hai wu tian chou)’ is a case in point.
In this scene, there are several Chinese longevity symbols such as the crane, the generic immortal, the pine tree, and the deer, etc. However, the proper meaning of this particular scene is not a simple assemblage of individual symbols. It …
Continue reading “May the length of your life be eternally prolonged!”