Symbolism of the Stomach

[an_lan]

Hey, I'm new here. I have been studying Chinese for one-year, and will be attending Nanjing University for a few months, starting in a couple weeks.

However, I have a question about symbolism. I heard in my Chinese 101 course that in China the stomach is highly symbolic. However, I don't really remember what is symbolic of. Does anyone know?

Furthermore, does it hold the same important symbolism in other Asian countries, specifically Japan?

Thank you!

[an_lan]

**bump**?

Anybody? Just curious, pure speculation is fine.

[muyongshi]

This is a TOTAL speculative comment... perhaps something to do with energy/qi or maybe the inner man {in ancient hebrew culture the word was intestines, ie what we now use as the heart} and I know chinese now uses 心 but I don't know if this has always been true.

There is a 99% chance I am wrong on both counts.

[leeyah]

Muyongshi is quite right on this. In traditional Chinese medicine, the stomach is seen as the center of body's energy & the center of instinct and intuition. Qi energy from the stomach is considered essential for life：

Generally, it is considered that whatever kind of disease occurs, if stomach qi is still strong, the prognosis will be good. It is said, "Stomach qi is the foundation of the human body. When there is stomach qi, there is life. When there is no stomach qi death will follow." Preserving stomach qi is therefore considered an important principle of treatment.

Yes, same thing in Japan. In Japan the stomach is called hara (or fuku). In the West these words are, unfortunately, best known as seppuku >>setsu 切 =cut + fuku 腹 =stomach i.e. harakiri >>腹切り, the ritual suicide. Anyway, in real life both Chinese and Japanese seem to pay special attention to this area on their bodies. For example, I remember my Japanese friends used to let their kids play barefoot in the snow (!) but always wrapped their bellies, saying this is good for the whole body.

hara: An area of the body centered in the lower abdomen (just below the belly button) that is an energy (ki in Japanese, chi in Chinese) center, called the field of elixir in Chi kung (kiko in Japanese), an area where life energy is generated, restored and stored that can be used for health, healing, or martial arts purposes. To the Japanese it is the area within which life vitality resides and the reason, some suggest, that Japanese ritual suicide by disembowelment (harakiri) is actually a sacrifice of a person's vital energy source in the name of honor. Traditionally, a long piece of cloth was wrapped around this area (see haramaki) in cold weather to prevent loss of vital energy from this center. ... This area is also the center of gravity of the body and is seen as the source of the body's greatest strength. In the martial arts and ways it is the area from which true power is generated.

And, yes, there's also a kind of connection between the stomach & the heart >> 腹心---which implies the vital organs of the human body. There are also phrases where 腹 is synonymous to 内心. Similarly, according to ancient Chinese belief, mind = heart. Sometimes you'll hear people say "to think from the heart">> 心里想, implying something a person has set one's mind on doing. Also, 他有心事 for worry, restlessness.

Edited August 21, 2009 at 08:34 PM by leeyah

[an_lan]

I find it very fascinating the ways different cultures view our bodies.

Thanks for your answers

[muyongshi]

Damn I'm good.

[trien27]

In the martial arts and ways it is the area from which true power is generated.

Actually, that's not the stomach area. It's the area 2-3 inches below the belly button / navel called Dan tian, 丹田 in Chinese, or たんでん / "tanden" in Japanese via Chinese. But somehow it's weirdly called "Field of elixir" in English because of a direct translation of 田 = field, & 丹 = elixir, those things created by Taoists to extend the lifespan.

Chi kung/ Qigong & Tai chi / Taiqi, etc... uses this area as a central focus point to push or pull the energy force called Qi / Chi all throughout the body.

hara or 腹 = abdomen, not stomach.

Edited August 22, 2009 at 10:48 PM by trien27

[trien27]

腹 = abdomen or belly area, not stomach!

stomach = 胃

Stomach chi / qi = 胃气 / 胃氣

Edited August 22, 2009 at 10:19 PM by trien27

[dyershand]

If this thread hasn't petered out yet, I'll contribute the information that I ended up here after being somewhat puzzled by a line in the 红楼梦 which described the hero Bao Yu as already having "several thousand characters in his belly" by the age of four (数千字在腹内了).

That's certainly an image that's strikingly different from anything one would find in the classical Western canon, where the needs of the "heart" and the "mind" tend rather to be contrasted with those of the "belly".

I don't read Japanese, but in the course of the googling that eventually brought me here, I did notice that a paper was recently published from the Kyoto University of Foreign Studies dealing with Head, Heart, Stomach: Expression of a State of Mind in Chinese.

Which would lead me to assume that the identification of "mind" and "belly" in quite this emphatic form is something "foreign" also to the Japanese.

But as I say, I'm no Japanologist.