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Bihui

There is a saying in Chinese, “The magistrates are free to set fire, while the common people are forbidden even to light lantern”. Here is a story. In the Song Dynasty (960-1279A.D.), a mahistrate named Tian Deng made it a taboo to say the word “deng” or its homonyms to show his dignity. At the time of the Lantern Festival, lanterns were lit for 3 days as a custom. To avoid using the word “deng”(lantern), a homonym of his name, he instructed the official concerned to use the word “fanghuo”(to set fire) instead of “fangdeng”(to light a lantern) in the official notice. Contrary to his wish, he made a fool of himself and hence came the saying. This is a story of “bihui”. “hui” referred to the names of ancient emperors, sages, one’s supervisors and elders. “bihui” meant that one should avoid mentioning those names either in speech or in writing so as to show respect to them. “bihui’ originated in the Spring and Autumn Period(770-476B.C.), took shape in the Qin Dynasty(221-206B.C.) and was in full vogue in the Tang and Song Dynasty and abolished only after the 1911 revolution. It was a special cultural phenomenon of China’s feudal society and a reflection of the hierarchical principle under which people’s statue was originally stratified. There were mainly 2 kinds of “bihui”, they are the one that concerned emperors and their forefathers and the one concerned of one’s parents and grandparents. In writing, it was applied mainly in 3 different ways: to use another character to replace the one to be avoided; either leave a blank apace for the blank or use some other meaningless marks to replace; to omit a particular stroke in writing the character. As a result of “bihui”, great confusion was caused in the use of characters in classical writings. But the study of “bihui” also becomes a branch of study.

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