Authors: David Wingrove

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BOOK: An Inch of Ashes

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tzu		‘Elder Sister’
wan wu		literally ‘the ten thousand things’; used generally to include everything in creation, or, as the Chinese say, ‘all things in Heaven and Earth’
Wei		Commandant of Security
wei chi		‘the surrounding game’, known more commonly in the West by its Japanese name of Go . It is said that the game was invented by the legendary Chinese Emperor Yao in the year 2350 BC to train the mind of his son, Tan Chu, and teach him to think like an emperor
wen ming		a term used to denote civilization, or written culture
wen ren		the scholar-artist; very much an ideal state, striven for by all creative Chinese
weng		‘Old man’. Usually a term of respect
Wu		a diviner; traditionally, these were ‘mediums’ who claimed to have special psychic powers. Wu could be either male or female
Wu		‘non-being’. As Lao Tzu says: ‘Once the block is carved, there are names.’ But the Tao is unnameable ( wu-ming ) and before Being ( yu ) is Non-Being ( wu ). Not to have existence, or form, or a name, that is wu
Wu ching		the ‘Five Classics’ studied by all Confucian scholars, comprising the Shu Ching (Book Of History), the Shih Ching (Book of Songs), the I Ching (Book of Changes), the Li Ching (Book of Rites, actually three books in all), and the Ch’un Chui (The Spring and Autumn Annals of the State of Lu)
wu fu		the five gods of good luck
wu tu		the ‘five noxious creatures’ – which are toad, scorpion, snake, centipede and gecko (wall lizard)
Wushu		the Chinese word for Martial Arts. It refers to any of several hundred schools. Kung fu is a school within this, meaning ‘skill that transcends mere surface beauty’
wuwei		nonaction, an old Taoist concept. It means keeping harmony with the flow of things – doing nothing to break the flow
ya		homosexual. Sometimes the term ‘a yellow eel’ is used
yamen		the official building in a Chinese community
yang		the ‘male principle’ of Chinese cosmology, which, with its complementary opposite, the female yin , forms the t’ai ch’i , derived from the Primeval One. From the union of yin and yang arise the ‘five elements’ (water, fire, earth, metal, wood) from which the ‘ten thousand things’ (the wan wu ) are generated. Yang signifies Heaven and the South, the Sun and Warmth, Light, Vigor, Maleness, Penetration, odd numbers and the Dragon. Mountains are yang
yang kuei tzu		Chinese name for foreigners, ‘Ocean Devils’. It is also synonymous with ‘Barbarians’
yang mei ping		‘willow plum sickness’, the Chinese term for syphilis, provides an apt description of the male sexual organ in the extreme of this sickness
yi		the number one
yin		the ‘female principle’ of Chinese cosmology (see yang ). Yin signifies Earth and the North, the Moon and Cold, Darkness, Quiescence, Femaleness, Absorption, even numbers and the Tiger. The yin lies in the shadow of the mountain
yin mao		pubic hair
Ying kuo		English, the language
ying tao		‘baby peach’, a term of endearment here
ying tzu		‘shadows’ – trained specialists of various kinds, contracted out to gangland bosses
yu		literally ‘fish’, but, because of its phonetic equivalence to the word for ‘abundance’, the fish symbolizes wealth. Yet there is also a saying that when the fish swim upriver it is a portent of social unrest and rebellion
yu ko		a ‘Jade Barge’, here a type of luxury sedan
Yu Kung		‘Foolish Old Man!’
yu ya		deep elegance
yuan		the basic currency of Chung Kuo (and modern-day China). Colloquially (though not here) it can also be termed kuai – ‘piece’ or ‘lump’. Ten mao (or, formally, jiao ) make up one yuan , while 100 fen (or ‘cents’) comprise one yuan
yueh ch’in		a Chinese dulcimer, one of the principal instruments of the Chinese orchestra
Ywe Lung		literally ‘The Moon Dragon’, the wheel of seven dragons that is the symbol of the ruling Seven throughout Chung Kuo: ‘At its centre the snouts of the regal beasts met, forming a rose-like hub, huge rubies burning fiercely in each eye. Their lithe, powerful bodies curved outward like the spokes of a giant wheel while at the edge their tails were intertwined to form the rim.’ (Chapter 4 of The Middle Kingdom )

AUTHOR’S NOTE

T
he transcription of standard Mandarin into European alphabetical form was first achieved in the seventeenth century by the Italian Matteo Ricci, who founded and ran the first Jesuit Mission in China from 1583 until his death in 1610. Since then several dozen attempts have been made to reduce the original Chinese sounds, represented by some tens of thousands of separate pictograms, into readily understandable phonetics for Western use. For a long time, however, three systems dominated – those used by the three major Western powers vying for influence in the corrupt and crumbling Chinese Empire of the nineteenth century: Great Britain, France, and Germany. These systems were the Wade-Giles (Great Britain and America – sometimes known as the Wade System), the
École Française de l’Extrême Orient
(France) and the Lessing (Germany).

Since 1958, however, the Chinese themselves have sought to create one single phonetic form, based on the German system, which they termed the
hanyu pinyin fang’an
(Scheme for a Chinese Phonetic Alphabet), known more commonly as
pinyin,
and in all foreign language books published in China since 1 January 1979
pinyin
has been used, as well as being taught now in schools alongside the standard Chinese characters. For this work, however, I have chosen to use the older and to my mind far more elegant transcription system, the Wade-Giles (in modified form). For those now used to the harder forms of
pinyin,
the following may serve as a basic conversion guide, the Wade-Giles first, the
pinyin
after:

p for b

ch’ for q
ts’ for c

j for r
ch’ for ch

t’ for t
t for d

hs for x
k for g

ts for z
ch for j

ch for zh

The effect is, I hope, to render the softer, more poetic side of the original Mandarin, ill-served, I feel, by modern
pinyin
.

The translation of Li Shang-Yin’s ‘untitled poem’ is by A. C. Graham from his excellent
Poems of the Late Tang,
published by Penguin Books, London, 1965.

The translation of Wu Man-yuan’s ‘Two White Geese’ (Fei Yen’s song in Chapter 49) is by Anne Birrell from
New Songs from a Jade Terrace: An Anthology of Early Chinese Love Poetry
, published by George Allen & Unwin, London, 1982.

The quotations from Sun Tzu’s
The Art of War
are from the Samuel B. Griffith translation, published by Oxford University Press, 1963.

The translation from Nietzsche is by R. J. Hollingdale and is taken from
Beyond Good and Evil
(Prelude to a Philosophy of the Future), published by Penguin Books, London, 1973;
Ecce Home
(How One Becomes What One Is), published by Penguin Books, London, 1979.

D. H. Lawrence’s ‘Bavarian Gentians’ can be found in
Last Poems
(1932) but the version here is taken from an earlier draft of the poem.

The game of
wei chi
mentioned throughout this volume is, incidentally, more commonly known by its Japanese name of
Go
, and is not merely the world’s oldest game but its most elegant.

David Wingrove

April 1990

January 2013

ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

T
hanks must go, once again, to all those who have read and criticized parts of
An Inch of Ashes
during its long gestation. To my editors – Nick Sayers, Brian DeFiore, John Pearce and Alyssa Diamond – for their patience as well as their enthusiasm; to my Writers Bloc companions, Chris Evans, David Garnett, Rob Holdstock, Garry Kilworth, Bobbie Lamming and Lisa Tuttle; to Andy Sawyer, for an ‘outsider’s view’ when it was much needed, and, as ever, to my stalwart helper and first-line critic, Brian Griffin, for keeping me on the rails.

Thanks are due also to Rob Carter, Ritchie Smith, Paul Bougie, Mike Cobley, Linda Shaughnessy, Susan and the girls (Jessica, Amy and baby Georgia), and Is and the Lunatics (at Canterbury) for keeping my spirits up during the long, lonely business of writing this. And to ‘Nan and Grandad’, Daisy and Percy Oudot, for helping out when things were tight... and for making the tea!

Finally, thanks to Magma, IQ and the Cardiacs for providing the aural soundtrack to this.

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