A diabolical offer

[muckefuck]

Sorry, teapot_farm. Eberhard's entry on mushrooms in his Dictionary of Chinese symbols focusses almost completely on immortality fungus, with hardly a word on common 'shrooms and nothing at all on the cute ones featured in Fantasia.

In other news, I've been having no luck either coaxing someone to come to the opera with me this Friday or giving away our two tickets. Front row, upper balcony. (Bad sight lights, great acoustics.) Gounod's Faust (not my fave--and we just saw it a few seasons ago) with Sam Ramey as Mephistopheles.

Any takers?

Comments

[princeofcairo.livejournal.com]

If nobody with a better claim comes along, I'll go with you. Can't beat the story, anyhow.

[muckefuck.livejournal.com]

Thanks, Ken. I'll keep you posted.

[teapot-farm.livejournal.com]

Well, I guess immortality fungus is a good start. Maybe there just aren't any symbolic associations with standard mushrooms? Or is that not an option in China?
I'm going to have to go google this Dictionary now... Thank you! My credit card company also thanks you...

[muckefuck.livejournal.com]

I'm not sure what you mean by "not an option". China is a huge country with a long history and a bewildering variety of local customs, so I can't imagine the common mushroom doesn't have symbolic value anywhere in it. However, the only fungus I've seen depicted in art is the mythical ling2zhi1 (in Korean, pullocho or "not age grass").

Incidentally, the character for zhi1 is used in the common transcription of "Chicago", leading to the shortened form Zhi1cheng2 or "immortality fungus town". (Given that the city's name actually comes from a word for skunk cabbage, I find this either richly ironic or a shining example of the Chinese knack for florid euphemism.)

[teapot-farm.livejournal.com]

I meant that *everything* seems to have some degree of symbolic meaning in China - there are very few things that don't have some sort of symbolic association (this is one of the things that I find fascinating and frustrating about the culture).

[muckefuck.livejournal.com]

What symbolic meanings does lemongrass have? Or okra? What about celery (barbarian or gai lan)? Chiles? Scallions? Coconuts?

There's a lot of general food symbolism--some foods are yang, others yin--but the number of edible plants I can think of which have specific symbolic associations are really rather small.

[teapot-farm.livejournal.com]

OK, OK, so I was generalising horribly from a smallish and subjective base of knowledge - it's an impression rather than a tested hypothesis. I admit it. I'll sulk about it, but I admit it :)

[snowy-owlet.livejournal.com]

WAH! I want to go! Sam Ramey! Yum!