What is my tea cup trying to tell me?

[DanMicke]

Best Forum,

 

I bought three nice porsclain tea cups from a Chinese web store to me and my daughters.

There's some writing on them. Beatiful as they are but would be nice to know what it says.

 

Here's a pic showing text on the lid (mirrored it to be safe it's the readable end, as well as the text on the cup. I turned the cup in two pics so all text is visible.

 

It seems a lot the tea cup tries to tell me but what?

[Tomsima]

The lid says '年年有余‘ ，'have plenty year after year'

 

The cup reads 河上春风动碧波，清浅畅游见龟乐 which roughly translates to 'On the face of the river blue waves ripple in the spring breeze, in the clear shallows turtles can be seen swimming along happily'. (Disclaimer: my own free translation, improvements welcome)

 

A quick search on Baidu says this is a line from a famous painting 鱼乐图 by 周东卿. I am not familiar with his work, downloaded a high-res image of the painting in question and could not find this line anywhere. Searches on baidu, bing and google of this line didn't yield anything further. I would also be interested in learning the origins of this line, as it appears to be popular on 茶具. Anyone know any more?

[DanMicke]

Just great Tomsima! It might be roughly but certainly good enough for me. Perhaps I can improve the translation regarding the animal mentioned. If you look on the painted motive on the other side of the cups from http://www.umiteasets.com/jingdezhen-porcelain-chinese-tea-cup.html you can see it's two fish so probably the translation shouldn't be 'turtles'`?

 

I'm at least rather good in biology and would identify the speices as 'sheatfish'. Had to use Google Translate to find the english world for swedish 'mal' so a small reservation, but the verse would sound very illustrative to the painting if it said 'shetfish' instead of 'turtles'.

 

Didn't think I could add anything in this forum but perhaps I did?

 

Thank's anyway. Very nice to be able to tell my daughters what's on their tea cups.

[roddy]

年年有余 is often found alongside images of fish, due to the matching pronunciation of 余 and 魚。 That's why the fish are there.

[Tomsima]

regarding 龟, the full form of this character is 龜 - which is essentially a little pictograph of a turtle/tortoise. In this respect it is not a character which can get confused with 'fish' which has its own pictograph 魚. I've not come across any circumstances where these two categories overlap, I'm pretty confident the translation should be turtle here. Pics below might be fun to show you daughters

 

[DanMicke]

I'm sure you're right. Was a happy guess to align the story to the painting. Guess the tirtles are there somewhere :).

[abcdefg]

Turtles often appear in Chinese decorative art as a symbol of longevity. One of several traditional blessings, alongside the fish, which is a symbol of plenty, of more or of surplus.

 

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cultural_depictions_of_turtles 

[anonymoose]

3 hours ago, Tomsima said:

I've not come across any circumstances where these two categories overlap

 

甲鱼

[陳德聰]

52 minutes ago, anonymoose said:

甲鱼

I actually laughed out loud at this because I spent a large part of my life not understanding whether this animal was a turtle or a fish.

 

P.S. I think it’s a turtle.

[Shelley]

Or more exactly a terrapin - I think.

[Publius]

It's meant to be 鱼. As roddy says, 'fish' and 'surplus' are homophones in Chinese, hence fish as a staple in Chinese New Year's Eve dinner, for the 口彩 '年年有余'). Also there's a famous dialogue between the ancient philosopher Zhuangzi and his friend Huizi about fish's state of mind.

 

I also found the Baidu entry that incorrectly attributes these two lines to 周东卿. I think somebody mistook a painting by a more recent painter, for example this, and a myth was born.

 

Someone has asked about a tea set on Reddit that does have fish on it.

[somethingfunny]

4 hours ago, Publius said:

Also there's a famous dialogue between the ancient philosopher Zhuangzi and his friend Huizi about fish's state of mind.

Is this related to the tea set?

 

I could never make my mind up about that dialogue:

"These fish are so happy."

"You're not a fish, how do you know they're happy?"

"You're not me, how do you know I don't know?"

"I'm not you, so I don't know.  You're not a fish, so you don't know either."

"But your original question assumed that I knew they were happy..."

 

[imron]

They were probably butterflies anyway. 

[Tomsima]

50 minutes ago, somethingfunny said:

I could never make my mind up about that dialogue:

According to some, it is meant to be intentionally circular and illogical to exhibit the fruitlessness of debate.  Zhuangzi you dick!

[Publius]

2 hours ago, somethingfunny said:

Is this related to the tea set?

It's not related. But it lends depth to the title/subject matter. 龜樂 -- not so deep.

Also I think your translation missed the punch line which involves a wordplay around 安: "You asked me how/where did I know they were happy. I know it on the river."

[somethingfunny]

6 minutes ago, Publius said:

Also I think your translation missed the punch line which involves a wordplay around 安

 

Yes! Now I remember!

 

This kind of thing sometimes makes me wonder what all the fuss with Zhuangzi is about.  Great, he made a pun, so what?  (Obviously, my knowledge of Zhuangzi is very limited.)

 

[Publius]

Well at least he's witty and a fascinating storyteller, not as dull as some of the preachers of Confucianism.