What are the taboos in China culture?

In ancient times, due to special attention to etiquette, names and characters were very particular. In interpersonal communication, first names are generally used as polite terms, courtesy names, respectful names and long names. Peers only call each other by their first names when they know each other well. In most cases, it is considered impolite to call each other or others by their first names. It is considered polite to compliment each other among peers. When writing letters or making phone calls from the bottom up, you can call them by their first names, but you must never call them by their first names, especially the names of the monarch or parents and elders, or even mention them, otherwise it would be "disrespectful" or "out of line", thus resulting in the unique "taboo" system in China. Taboo is a unique phenomenon in China feudal society, which began in the Zhou Dynasty, became in the Qin Dynasty, flourished in the Tang and Song Dynasties, intensified in the Qing Dynasty, and was abolished after the founding of the Republic of China. At that time, people could not call the emperor or his elders by their first names, otherwise they would be in danger of going to jail or even losing their heads because of taboos. The common taboo method is to change the words to be taboo into other words with the same or similar meaning. As a result, there have been many strange phenomena in the history of China in which names of people, places or things have been changed. Taboos have caused some confusion in ancient literature, and also caused a lot of inconvenience in reading today.

There are four types of taboo objects:

First, emperors avoided using the names of contemporary emperors and emperors of past dynasties, which was a "national taboo" or "public taboo" at that time. For example, during the Liu Xiu period, the scholar was changed to Cai Mao; Ganlong once wrote a letter to the door, saying that Five Blessingg was not allowed in the couplet, in order to avoid the name of the emperor shunzhi Fu Lin. Sometimes they even avoid using the queen's name, such as Lv Hou's name, and courtiers have to change their names to pheasants when they meet pheasants.

The second is to avoid the names of officers, that is, subordinates should avoid the names of officers themselves, their fathers and grandfathers. Even some arrogant officials strictly ordered their men and people to avoid their names. There is a story in Lu You's Notes on the Old Learning Temple: a state official named Tian Deng, his subordinates and people in the state are not allowed to call his name or write his name. On the fifteenth day of the first month, turn on the lights for three days as usual. The little official who wrote the notice did not dare to write the word lamp, but changed it to "the state government set fire to it for three days according to law." This led to the joke that "only state officials are allowed to set fires, and people are not allowed to light lamps".

Third, avoiding sages mainly refers to avoiding the name of sages Confucius and Mencius. Some dynasties also avoided using the name of Huangdi, the ancestor of the Chinese nation, and some even avoided using the name of Duke Zhou or even Laozi. For example, Confucius was named "Kong Qiu". In the Northern Song Dynasty, the court ordered that when reading the word "autumn", the word "A" should be pronounced and the word "autumn" should be circled with a red pen. This was especially true in the Qing Dynasty: from now on, all people with the surname "Qiu" in the world should add an ear next to them and change their surname to "Qiu", and they should pronounce "seven" instead of "Qiu". As a result, the world surname "Qiu" was renamed from now on. Today, there are people with the surname "Qiu" and others with the surname "Qiu". The reason is that some have changed, and some have changed back to the original word "autumn".

Fourth, avoid elders, that is, avoid the names of parents and grandparents, which is a "family taboo" or "private taboo" of the whole family. When dealing with people, it is very impolite to avoid the taboos of the other elders. Li He, a poet in the Tang Dynasty, had a father named Jin, and "Jin" and "Jin" are homonyms, so Li He could not be a scholar all his life. In A Dream of Red Mansions, Lin Daiyu's mother's name is called, so whenever she meets Min, Lin Daiyu pronounces it as "trick" or "secret". Sima Qian's father was called "Sima Tan", so in Historical Records, everyone with the same name as his father changed his name. For example, "Zhang Mengtan" was changed to "Zhang Mengtong"; "Zhao Tan" was changed to "Zhao Tong". Later, the same was true of Ye Fan, the author of Han Shu in the Later Han Dynasty. Because Ye Fan's father was called Fan Tai, in Han Shu in the Later Han Dynasty, Guo Tai was turned into Guo Tai unnoticed. This man named "Qin Zheng" has also become "Zheng Tai".

Another example is the Tang Dynasty poet Du Fu. His father's name is Du Xian. In order to avoid the taboo of "leisure", Du Fu has been writing poems all his life, but he has never used the word "leisure" in his poems. Du Fu's mother's name is Haitang, and there is no Haitang poem in Du Ji, so there is no mother's name.

Another example is Su Shi's grandfather's surname "Xu", which is taboo, so Su Xun didn't write the word "Xu". Where the word "preface" is written, the word "introduction" is changed; Su Shi didn't use the word "preface" either. He used the word "narration" instead.

Taboo methods commonly used by the ancients

The ancients often need to avoid taboo, and they summarized various methods of taboo:

Change fonts. Some use words with the same (similar) meaning instead of words that need to be avoided. For example, when Emperor Wu of the Han Dynasty became famous, the famous debater Kuaiche changed his name to Tong. When Tang Gaozong ruled by name, everyone in the world replaced the rule of words with the rule of words. Sometimes it can be avoided by adding and subtracting strokes. For example, Qiu's ancestor was originally named Qiu, but Confucius was named Qiu, so he added an ear to avoid it. Since the Song Dynasty, people have avoided the word "autumn". When writing, they often omit a stroke, and some people write □ or leave blank.

Change pronunciation. For example, Qin Shihuang is famous for ruling the world, so the first month is about to be read as life. Some people read a word instead of a word, and read a word that should be avoided and change it to a word.

For example:

The first month of the lunar calendar was originally called "political month" in ancient times, because the ancient emperor had to accept the sacrifices of civil and military officials in the first month of the year to decide the political affairs of the year. In the Qin Dynasty, Qin Shihuang was born in January and was named "Ying Zheng", so he changed "political month" to "the first month". The word "Zheng" in the first month reads "Zheng", not politics.

Qin Shihuang's father was named Zi Chu. So I changed Chu to Jing.

When Emperor Taizong called Li Shimin, he changed the Ministry of Civil Affairs, one of the six central departments, to "the Ministry of Civil Affairs".

Zhao Zhen, a famous Song Renzong, had to change the word "steamed" into "boiled" for steamed bread and steamed buns.

What's more, there are more than 50 taboo words in Song Gaozong's famous structure to avoid "structure". If you are satisfied, please choose a satisfactory answer, thank you!