For foreign and alien species, our ancestors always gave a special noun to distinguish between them.
The word often changes with the times.
During the Qin and Han dynasties, the northern and western ethnic groups were mostly called "Hu", such as Hu people, Huqin, pepper, and carrotsDuring the Tang and Song dynasties, foreign ethnic groups often used the word "fan", such as fanbang, tomato, sweet potato, and sweet melon;In the Ming and Qing dynasties, it was mostly called "Yi", and those who have read the book will know that Wei Yuan has a proposition of "mastering Yi and mastering the skills to control Yi". There is also a word "倭" that refers to it more clearly.
Of course, this is only roughly the case, and it cannot be used as a strict division of eras.
As a masterpiece depicting China's ancient civilization and aristocratic life, Dream of Red Mansions is a dazzling collection of foreign objects and the influence of foreign cultures.
For example, when everyone ate venison couplet, Xue Baochai wore a lotus green bucket pattern icing on the cake with a foreign thread of Crocus silk, the lotus blue alludes to the fate of Sister Bao's widowhood like Li Kun, although the color is low-key, the texture is extraordinary, "Fanchai" is an imported wool fabric, not an ordinary person can have.
The little drama is clever and playful, Baoyu not only made her dress up as a little Tufan'er, but also gave her a name called Yelu Xiongnu, and the girls in the garden couldn't call this strange name, and changed her name again, transliterated as "Wendu Lina", which was translated as "Venus Glass".
However, a close reading of the text of "Dream of Red Mansions" will show that the foreign objects written by Mr. Cao Xueqin are more commonly marked with the word "foreign".
Wang Xifeng appeared for the first time, wearing a narrow coat of red satin with gold and butterflies on his upper body, and a jade flower-sprinkled crepe skirt underneath. The style and workmanship of the clothes are Chinese, but the fabrics are imported "foreign" goods.
There is a golden bell from the West in her house, which Grandma Liu saw when she first entered Jiafu, and sold it for five hundred and sixty taels of silver in the seventy-second round, and it was spent in half a month.
Wang Xifeng usually has headaches, and often sticks Western plasters called "Yifuna", when Qingwen was sick, Baoyu sent Musk Yue to ask for some, roasted softly, and pasted it on the temples with red satin horns. Baoyu also let her smell Western snuff to ventilate, and the cigarette was packed in a flat glass box with a mythical figure embedded with Western enamel on the lid.
Xue Baoqin has been buying foreign goods with his father in the West Sea since he was a child, and he has seen ...... foreign beauties who can write Chinese poems
And so on and so forth, and I can't finish it in a while.
The word "foreign" has been retained and used in modern times, but the connotation has changed greatly.
In "Dream of Red Mansions", "foreign" is only used to mean "non-local", and foreigners, foreign goods, foreign paintings, foreign cloth, foreign smoke, ......, to name a few, has nothing to do with aesthetics.
And this word "foreign", in the process of being used in later generations, the outer edge of the meaning of the word continues to expand, and after the meaning is extended, the word "foreign" used as an adjective has its opposite - "earth".
Mr. Cao Xueqin must not have thought that in the minds of modern readers, such a praised "foreign atmosphere":
Such was complained about "rustic":
In fact, "modern printing and dyeing" is a very young technology, in the book "Dream of Red Mansions" and for a long time afterward, dyeing and color fixing mostly use natural materials, and the color of textiles is relatively monotonous, heavy and dull. The 89 Beijing Film version of "Dream of Red Mansions" presents the original appearance of the costumes that are closer to historical facts.
In the 87 version of "Dream of Red Mansions", the bright, colorful, and light colors used on the costumes are the products of modern industry, and they cannot appear on the sisters of the Grand View Garden.
Of course, the 87 version of the clothing is more pleasing to the eye and more in line with modern aesthetics, but the word "restoration" does not need to be mentioned.
This article is an original work that I came to see and was not authorizedRight, don't**.