Cao Fei whispers in "The Thousand Character Essay" 023: Wearing clothes

Many sentences in "The Thousand Character Essay" are actually very vernacular and are not as difficult to read or understand as some ancient texts. For example, this sentence - wear clothes.

What does it mean?

The literal meaning is, so I put on clothes.

If you have a little bit of literary common sense, your translation will be more accurate.

With Lei Zu, people now have clothes to wear.

For translation to this level, education levels above the sixth grade of primary school are sufficient. If you want to translate it into a more accurate meaning, it is basically impossible to just rely on the literal meaning.

If you want a more detailed and accurate explanation. Then let's continue talking.

"Naifu clothes" can spell out a group of synonyms, clothes - clothes.

Synonyms are synonyms, but there are still differences between them.

Let’s look at “clothes” first.

If you have seen the old buckle clothes or the cassocks worn by monks, it will be much easier to understand this word.

Look at the upper part of "clothes", dotted and horizontal, what does it look like? Is it like what we often say, two shoulders carrying one head? Yes, that's what it means.

What about the second half?

The lower part is like a painting, with a person wearing a buckle-style dress.

With this explanation, you should be convinced. Yi refers to the top.

Where is Shang? Shang represents bottom clothing, or robe to be precise.

The upper part of Shang is noble "Shang", and the lower part is "Yi". It means high-end clothing, and the clothing that can only be worn on formal occasions is Shang.

Among the court music of the Tang Dynasty, there is a song "Neon Clothes and Feather Clothes Song", which is a piece of music performed while wearing neon-like clothes and feather-like clothes.

A rainbow is a celestial phenomenon similar to a rainbow. The difference is that the rainbow is arranged in the order of red, orange, yellow, green, blue, blue, and purple, while the rainbow is arranged in the order of purple, blue, green, yellow, orange, and red. Just the opposite order of arrangement of rainbows.

Next, let’s talk about persuasion.

Fu was not originally related to clothes. It actually refers to a torture instrument - the shackle.

We often see on costume TV that when a prisoner is assigned, he will wear a wooden shackle with three holes.

This thing is called a shackle.

The act of catching a prisoner and putting a shackle on him is called "submission".

After "clothing" evolved into clothing worn by people, it specifically refers to underwear or shirts, which is something that is close to people.

To summarize.

Yi refers to the upper garment.

Shang refers to a one-piece skirt or robe.

Fu refers to underwear or shirt.

I know you want to ask, didn’t the ancients have simple bottoms? Yes, that thing is called "Chang", which refers to a long skirt.

As we mentioned earlier, it was Leizu who made the ancients "wear clothes". Let’s talk about Leizu next.

Of course Leizu is not this person’s real name. I don't even know what her real name is. I only know that she is the daughter of the Xiling family, the wife of Huangdi, the mother of Xuanxiao and Changyi, and the grandmother of Emperor Ku and Zhuanxu.

Then why is she called "Leizu"?

Lei is a woman + tired.

"Female" does not need to be explained too much, it refers to her gender.

Let's take a look at "Lei", "Lei" is Tian + Shi.

"Field", we think of crops.

As for the word "tired" in ancient Chinese, three fields are written in the first half. We know that in ancient Chinese it is customary to use three to replace the meaning of many. Three fields means many crops.

The lower part of the word "糸" is "糳", which refers to individual silk threads that have been processed into bundles.

You imagine, one person has to take care of many crops and process silk. This is very tiring.

In ancient times, men's job was to go out hunting, while women were responsible for farming and weaving at home. Therefore, the word "tired" is a word specially created for women. We say that men do not have the right to say they are tired. This statement is well founded.

Added the word "lei" next to the word "女", that is, "Lei", which is an exclusive Chinese character and refers to Lei Zu. It was she who first led people to raise silkworms and weave.

Finally, let us mention that Leizu was the inventor of silkworm rearing and textiles. But there was someone else who really invented clothing.

The person who invented the mian, also known as the hat, was called Hu Chao; the person who invented the shoe, also known as the shoe, was Yu Ze; the person who invented the clothes was Boyu. Leizu was just the leader of these three inventors and the supplier of raw materials.