Further Thoughts on “Materiality”: The Examples of Ginseng, Cricket, and Others

1. Zhang Jiqing (1938-) Kun opera, an episode from “The Peony Pavilion.” Further Thoughts on “Materiality”: The Examples of Ginseng, Cricket, and Others Ping-chen Hsiung Dean, Faculty of Arts, The Chinese University of Hong Kong Session 5 Space, Work, and Gender in Material Culture 2011 Ming-Qing International Conference Academia Sinica 24–25 November 2011

2. Outline 1) The concept of "materiality" has been a loose and vague one in the academic field of Ming-Qing studies. 2) The importance of the "materiality" was not well noticed by the field of Ming-Qing studies as several past proposals on the research of this concept were overlooked. 3) This paper is to illustrate the importance of the hows and whys of approaching the question of "materiality" in the Ming-Qing studies. 4) The duration of life, size, and its characters had made cricket and the relating devices for its gambling flourishing in the Ming-Qing society. 5) The unique property, high-stood price, and high portability in dry form of Ginseng had made it an important goods in short-distance and long-distance trade since the Ming-Qing world. 6) The paper is to take the opportunity to illustrate the usefulness of the concept of "materiality" in the Ming-Qing studies. 7) Conclusion: It is also to bring new insight to the Ming-Qing studies outside of the context of dynastic Chinese studies and to provide cross-disciplinarity and to connect it with the field of natural sciences.

3. Past Records • Studies of Materiality • Matter, Material Culture, and Materiality 《睹物思人》(2003) • Memory, Region, and Change • 《明清以來江南社會與文化論集》(2004) • 《轉變中的文化記憶：中國與周邊》(2008) • Bodily Feelings • 《體物入微：物與身體感的研究》(2008) 熊月之、熊秉真主編，《明清以來江南社會與文化論集》。上海：上海社會科學院，2004。 李焯然、熊秉真主編，《轉變中的文化記憶：中國與周邊》。香港：香港教育圖書，2008。 余舜德主編，《體物入微：物與身體感的研究》。台灣：國立清華大學，2008。

4. Past Records April, 2001 Research Project of Academia Sinica 中國的物質與文化 Team Member: 熊秉真 盧建榮 衣若芬 張哲嘉 林麗月 王璦玲 邱澎生 余舜德 • Courses for concern: • 物質性應多加解釋 • 會議應打破淺嘗而止的慣例 • 何謂「身份認同與物質性」

5. Past Records December, 2002 Research Project of NSC 近世中國的物質、消費與文化 Team Member: 熊秉真 盧建榮 衣若芬 張哲嘉 林麗月 王璦玲 邱澎生 余舜德 巫仁恕 王正華 • Courses for concern: • 計劃與「物質」的關係並不密切 • 研究者幾乎沒有研究物質文化的經驗

6. The Case of Ginseng蔘 • Pharmaceutical Property • High Price • Filial Piety/Compassion • Light and Transportable

7. Ocean Connects — the Case of the Pacifici. Pacific Spaces: Comparisons and Connections • This is a study of the evolving story of ginseng (Latin name: panax ginseng) in the early modern period, • during which this medicinally-employed root plant originally discovered in China, due to the geographic expansion of human activities, began to take on first a “foreign” properties (the Korean ginseng), then a “maritime” element (the American ginseng). • Although many alleged that the Chinese knowledge and use of ginseng had a long history that may go back thousands of years, its significant expansion in pharmaceutical applications, thus its role in maritime trade, has only a short history (less than five centuries).

8. In the 1990s, over 75 percent of ginseng grown in North America is shipped to Hong Kong. It is estimated that 80 percent of the ginseng traded in Hong Kong is re-exported to China. The other 20 percent is redistributed to the Chinese diasporas or used for local consumption According to CITES (Convention on International Trade in Endangered Species) Annual Report data, Canada exported 2,442 tons of wild and cultivated North American ginseng root to Hong Kong from 1980 to 1996 while the United States exported nearly 9,000 tons. • Ocean Connects — the Case of the Pacificii. Early Modern and Modern Times Rapidly Changing Value of Ginseng in the 18th Century Year Price 1714 10 times the weight of silver 1750 16 times 1763 32 times 1782 85 times 1796 300 times

9. Ocean Connects — the Case of the Pacificii. Early Modern and Modern Times Rapidly Changing Value of Ginseng in the 18th Century Year Price 1714 10 times the weight of silver 1750 16 times 1763 32 times 1782 85 times 1796 300 times Ginseng in Namdaemun Market, Seoul, South Korea

10. The Tale of Ginseng: A Curious Historyi. In Chinese Documents Illustrations of a variety of “Seng” in Pen-tsao kang-mu本草綱目(Compendium of Materia Medica)by Li Shih-chen 李時珍 (1518-1593) ren-shen人參 (Man’s root) tzi-shen紫參 tan-shen丹參 yuan-shen元參 (Purple ginseng) (Red ginseng) (Black ginseng) sha-shen沙參 k’u-shen苦參 (Sand ginseng) (Bitter ginseng)

11. panax ginseng (renshen人蔘) Araliaceae glehnia littoralis (beishashen北沙蔘) Apiaceae Asterids codonopsis pilosula (dangshen黨蔘) Campanulaceae Core Eudicots adenophora tetraphylla (nanshashen南沙蔘) Rosids sophora flavescens ait. (kushen苦參) Fabaceae pseudostellaria heterophylla (taizishen太子蔘) Caryophyllaceae Polygonaceae polygonum bistorta(quanshen 拳蔘) • The Tale of Ginseng: A Curious Historyii. In Pharmaceutics and Botany According to modern botany, the so-called “Asian Ginseng” includes:

12. III. The Maritime Story – the “Seng” that Moves across Continents as well as Oceansi. Ginseng across Boundaries • Given the nature and substance of our “Seng” story, national historiography or regional discourse, whether from the Chinese/Korean end, or from the Canadian/US end, will not be adequate to tell the tale. • When Manchurian ginseng and later Korean ginseng made their entry into the Chinese markets, it was clear that information and markets recognized few boundaries. • By the early 18th century and onward, when various wild ginseng productions still fall short of supplying the growing need of this pan oceanic roots, newly arrived foreign parties such as the French Jesuits, the Siberian fur hunters, were all falling for the fantasy name of search for the magical roots beyond everybody’s known border.

13. III. The Maritime Story – the “Seng” that Moves across Continents as well as Oceansii. Missionaries and the “Popularity of Ginseng” • Fur traders and Jesuits in that region were but latest additions to an already multi-regional enterprise. • Father Pierre Jartoux (1661-1728), a Jesuit who went to Manchuria to draw a map for the emperor K’ang-hsi (r. 1661-1722), discovered the popularity of ginseng in local market. • He wrote a letter reporting the discovery and popularity of ginseng in 1711 and sent it back to Paris. It was later translated and published in the Royal Society’s Philosophical Transactions in 1713.

14. III. The Maritime Story – the “Seng” that Moves across Continents as well as Oceansii. Missionaries and the “Popularity of Ginseng” Informed by Father Jartoux’s letter, FatherJoseph-François Lafitau (1681-1746) who worked in Quebec and Montreal realized the popularity of Ginseng in Chinese market and began to promote the search and dig of Ginseng in North America, and publish his report on Ginsengin1718. Illustration of American ginseng from Joseph-François Lafitau, Mémoire … concernant la précieuse plante du gin-seng de Tartarie, découverte en Canada, Paris, 1718. (Image from the Collections of John Carter Brown Library.)

15. Fur traders travelled between Eurasia and North America Jesuits passed on information of Ginseng from China to Europe to North America American ginseng came to China as maritime cargo • Critical twists and turns: • (a) the global networking of the Jesuits • (b) the on-spot translation and shrewd connection of the fur traders in Siberia and North America, and • (c) the intellectual and clinical flexibility of Chinese medicine and herbalists

16. The Case of Cricket蟋蟀 • Small Physical Size • Short Life Expectancy • Bloodless Fight • Low Spatial Requirement • Late Imperial Urban Life

17. “Cricket (蟋蟀)” A piece in the “Odes of the T’ang (唐),” of Lessons from the States (國風) It opens with a set of four-word quadruplets about: “Now that it comes (again) the time that crickets rest in the hall, thus the year is drawing to an end (蟋蟀在堂, 歲聿其莫); yet (since) I (Duke Hsi of the T’ang State 唐之僖公) can hardly bring myself to play, this (year’s) calendar (the sun and the moon) would then have to pass by (as it stands) (今我不樂, 日月其除).” “Picture of Cricket (蟋蟀圖),” The Complete Classics Collection of Ancient China 古今圖書集成, 1706.

18. “God of game”: Chia Ssu-tao (賈似道, 1213-1275), whose notoriety fixed on his biography in the ranks of evil ministers of Sung (960-1279) official history (宋史, 奸臣傳) as the Nero-like prime minister who gambled his pious, Confucius-fearing Southern Sung empire (1127-1279) away to the barbaric Mongol-Yüan (1271-1368) conquerors. The City of Hsiang and Valleys in the Fall 川劇《紅梅記》中賈似道扮相(2007年演出攝影)

19. “as the falling of (the capital city of) Hsiang-yang became immanent, (prime minister) Chia set himself everyday upon the top of Hill Ge (葛嶺), whereby he had rolls of pavilions, pagodas, gardens and waters built for him. As courtesans, prostitutes, nuns, and others of attraction were taken in as his concubines, he immersed daily in his licentious pleasure (淫樂).” “gamblers arrived day in and day out to indulge in games since no one dared to peek into the going-ons in his residence. One day the brother of one of the courtesans came, standing by the doorway as if to make his entrance, when Chia caught sight of him and had the man tied up and thrown into the fire.” Recorded as “having squatted on the ground, with his courtesans, for cricket fighting (鬥蟋蟀).” As his courtiers used to tease him by pointing at the game and said: “now this is the real important business of the state, isn’t it?” To To 脫脫, “Lieh-chüan 233” 列傳第233, Sung-shih宋史 (二十四史點校本), chüan 474 (Beijing: Chung-hua, 1977)

20. Chia’s personal name, Ssu-tao (似道) Literally meant “something approaching the Way,” or “someone almost like a Virtue.” The allusion to Lao Tze’s Book of Tao (tao-te ching) with the line that “Any Way (tao) that is mentionable is never the real Way, just as any name that is nameable is never the true name.” Chia’s dear name, “Valley of the Fall (秋壑)” Meant to evoke the sounds and colors, the sentiments and thoughts of the valleys in the fall. When the Sung history scandalized its prime minister Chia for gambling his empire away, is that oddly there had to be moments of rest, some sort of merry-making to the human existence. Chia Ch’iu-huo 賈秋壑.《鼎新圖像蟲經》(明萬曆刊本), 15th century.

21. By the time the cricket fight became fully installed as a professional gambling game in the towns and cities of north and south China, this urban-rural make-over had long been completed. For the city keepers and gamblers, they got into it because, their country folks would wheeled in the bugs to keep everybody entertained. Their livestock suppliers out in the country pricked the bugs out and wheeled them up the town markets, for the urban literati clients, merchants, and officials be putting this ahead of their other businesses. For here exists an amusement, a live game, the thriftiness of which had won wide acclaim by all parties concerned—thrifty in time, thrifty in space, and thrifty in virtue with mere violence and blood imagined, sparingly shed, for a society wild in its chase for fame, money, consumption, all within the ethical bonds of the high-brow Neo-Confucianism. Snatchers out the Fields and Keepers at Home 宋 賈秋壑輯《鼎新圖像蟲經》

22. Bugware “So, have you been keeping the rain?” By high summer time, such asking of people’s quiet thrill in saving up rain drops becomes daily greeting. All instruments and set-ups for such purposes should arrive but from the finest workshop and most delicate craftsmanship (一切器具精工) of the country, there was obviously no end to the degrees of luxury or indulgence in such pursuits. “Oldman from the Awkward Garden (拙園老人)” gave practical information and technical details for the serious keepers and players: “For anyone who developed such an attachment to the pleasure, he becomes helplessly picky (about the equipments).” “So that when it comes the moment to engage in the combat, anybody of everybody are there showing off their magnificent gadgets, just as the way each (master) may be boasting off their gorgeous insects down the sleeves.” • The assorted instruments for catching: • The copper-wired snatcher • The bamboo stick pricker • The palm-leaf fan

23. Instruments used to make up the main house furniture for the bug: • The dwelling pot (yang-pen, 養盆) • The passing corridor (kuo-lung, 過籠) • The drinking cup • The dwelling pot (養盆) • The passing corridor (過籠) • The drinking cup

24. 1 • Instruments for cricket fighting: • Invitation for cricket fighting 鬥蟲請帖 • Fine weighing scale 蛐蛐秤兒 • 萬禮張小罐四具及提匣 (前秋上局用) • 後秋上局用圓籠 4 2 3

25. Conclusion • What is “materiality”? • To have new insight to the Ming-Qing Studies outside the context of dynastic Chinese Studies cross-disciplinarily • Maritimes History of Ginseng • Transcendence to the realm of Ming-Qing China • Crickets in the history of game and gambling • Crickets in the context of World History other than Ming-Qing Period

26. 2. To bridge the Ming-Qing Studies with the • field of natural sciences • Manipulation of the fighting of crickets • Medical function of Ginseng turned to the concept of filial piety and compassion