Chapter 49: A Pair of New Year Couplets

“That will have to do,” Huixiang said. “Shall I go shopping with you, Mother?”

“No need. Zhong can come. We still have half a day; there’s time enough. You ought to go home and prepare your own reunion dinner. Your family is waiting.”

With her parents’ immediate crisis past, Huixiang felt easier.

“Very well. I’ll cut and put up some window decorations first, then go. We’ll come to pay our respects on the second day.”

While she worked on the paper-cuttings, Madam Liang took Shaoyang out to buy provisions. Many shops had already closed for New Year’s Eve. They walked through half the town before finding everything.

There were three cuts of meat—pork, beef and mutton—each scarcely thicker than a cleaver blade. Held up, they almost let the light through. These represented the three sacrificial animals for the ancestral offerings. Otherwise Madam Liang would never have brought herself to buy meat.

They also bought a small bag of dark flour, a gourd of distilled liquor, several pieces of New Year cake and a large radish, along with a pair of red candles, incense, spirit money and a few firecrackers. Last came two peachwood boards, the predecessors of modern Spring Festival couplets. Each bore a picture of a door god, with blank space beneath.

Peachwood charms had been used in ancient times to protect doorways from evil. For convenience, people later used peachwood boards bearing the names or likenesses of the gods Shentu and Yulei, hanging them on doors to invite blessings and avert misfortune. By the Five Dynasties, auspicious paired phrases began to replace the gods’ names. In the Song, these developed into the Spring Festival couplets familiar in modern times.

Guizhi Hall’s old pair read, “Bamboo bursts proclaim peace; spring welcomes the new year.” Written directly on the wood, they could not be reused. Before the Tang and Song, peachwood charms were replaced every year, as Wang Anshi’s well-known poem *New Year’s Eve* described:

*Firecrackers sound: another year is gone;*
*Spring breezes warm the New Year wine.*
*At countless doors the bright sun shines;*
*New peachwood charms replace the old.*

When they returned, Huixiang had put up the window decorations and gone home.

Zuo Gui had arranged the offering table and brought out the ancestral tablets. Every household had an altar, generally in the middle of the main room facing the entrance. Ordinarily it honoured Heaven, Earth, the sovereign, parents and teachers; at festivals it served the ancestors. The table for ancestral rites was usually much larger.

Since Guizhi Hall’s main room was used for consultations, its ordinary altar was small and stood beside the counter. On New Year’s Eve and New Year’s Day the shop closed, except for emergencies, so a larger table could be set out. However meagre the offerings, the proper form still mattered.

While Madam Liang prepared the offerings and dinner, Zuo Gui told Shaoyang to take down the old charms. Shaoyang placed the new boards on the long table. His father ground ink, considering what auspicious phrases to write.

By the time the ink was ready, he had reached no decision.

“What shall we put up this year?” he asked casually.

Shaoyang knew little about Spring Festival couplets, but his medical reading had left a few related examples in his memory. After a moment, he recited:

*Where cold frost passes, kin are found—on strange ground or familiar ground;*
*Where spring winds come, all flowers bloom—with agastache and costus fragrance.*

The words for strange and familiar ground also named raw and prepared rehmannia.

Zuo Gui stroked his beard and repeated the lines, then shook his head.

“Nonsense. It doesn’t work.”

“What doesn’t?”

“What do you mean by raw and prepared rehmannia?”

“Raw rehmannia and cooked rehmannia.”

“Cooked? Who told you rehmannia could be cooked for medicinal use?”

Shaoyang slapped his forehead. He had forgotten: prepared rehmannia was not recorded as a medicinal material until *Supplement to Materia Medica* in the middle Tang, more than a century later. Before the early Tang there was only raw rehmannia, called dried rehmannia in *Shennong’s Classic of Materia Medica*. No wonder his father did not know it.

“I only said it offhand. It’s a couplet; there’s no need to take it so seriously.”

“No need? Fail to take medicine seriously and you’ll kill someone!”

As the matter escalated, Shaoyang dared not argue.

“Then I’ll think of another. Hmm… I have one:

*Walnut kernels, apricot kernels, quisqualis kernels—a benevolent heart saves lives;*
*Heavenly immortal, garden immortal, mighty immortal—immortal prescriptions aid the world.*”

He was rather pleased with himself. The couplet linked six medicines through the words for “benevolence” and “immortal”. Tao ren meant walnut kernels, xing ren the bitter apricot kernels of medicine, and junzi ren the fruit of the worm-expelling quisqualis. Tianxian was the medicine properly called langdang, or henbane; fengxian meant balsam. Six medicinal names formed a pair of lines expressing the physician’s highest ideal: helping the world and saving lives with compassion. A fine couplet—though unfortunately not his own invention.

Then he noticed his father’s doubtful stare.

Had he made another mistake?

He reviewed the lines and groaned inwardly. Walnut kernels and quisqualis kernels had not entered medicinal use until after the Song, and balsam not until after the Ming. No wonder his father looked at him so strangely.

“No, that one’s wrong too. Not a good choice. Let me think…”

“You can’t even tell medicines from flowers. Half a bucket makes the most noise! Leave medicinal couplets alone until you understand the medicines.”

“All right. I’ll think of something else.”

“Mm.”

Despite the scolding, Zuo Gui was inwardly surprised. His son had once struggled even to understand how paired lines rhymed, let alone compose them on the spot. Now he had produced two in quick succession. Some details were nonsensical, but the parallelism and rhyme were at least orderly. Using medicinal names showed a quick mind. Secretly pleased, he held his brush and waited without hurrying him.

He did not know that Shaoyang was merely recalling things he had read.

Shaoyang rubbed his chin and ran through the medical couplets in his memory. At last he found one suitable enough. He cleared his throat.

*May all beneath Heaven be free from illness,*
*Though medicines gather dust upon our shelves.*

“Good!” Zuo Gui could not help exclaiming. “An excellent couplet. It sounds almost commonplace, yet there is elegance in its simplicity. Above all, it expresses the lofty compassion a physician should have for the people. Only… putting it on our shop might be a little… well…”

He chuckled awkwardly.

“I think it describes you exactly, Father,” Shaoyang said. “You are kind-hearted. You would rather live in poverty than deceive people for money. It is entirely fitting.”

The flattery pleased Zuo Gui. Smiling into his beard, he said, “Then you write it.”

“Me?”

Shaoyang was alarmed. He had used a brush only in primary school. His calligraphy was unfit to be seen.

“Yes. You thought of it. Let me see whether your writing has improved.”

Zuo Gui offered the brush.

Shaoyang accepted reluctantly, touched the tip against the inkstone and stared at the boards. His mother had paid for them. There were only two; ruin one and there was no replacement. Once his brush touched the wood, he could not undo it.

“Father, could I practise on paper first? If you think it’s good enough, I’ll write it on the charms.”

His father looked at him, stroking his beard.

“Very well.”

Shaoyang quickly fetched a sheet of medicine-wrapping paper and secured it on the table with a paperweight. Holding his wrist clear of the surface, he laboriously began writing stroke by stroke.

After just two characters, his father’s rebuke sounded beside him.

“Enough! What is that supposed to be? Chicken scratches? Your writing was ugly before, but never this bad. What has happened to you?”

Shaoyang stood with his brush raised and his head lowered, afraid to answer.

Zuo Gui snatched the brush away.

“Worse the more you learn! Useless boy!”

Still scolding, he wrote the couplet himself on the peachwood boards, then set down the brush.

“What are you standing there for? Enjoying the spectacle? Go and hang them up!”

“Yes.”

Shaoyang climbed onto a stool, fixed the boards on either side of the entrance and stepped back to check that they hung straight.

Borrowing modern couplets had got him through his father’s test, only for his calligraphy to disappoint him and earn another scolding. Brush writing was an essential skill in this age. He would have to make up that deficiency soon.

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