Chapter 15: This Bed is Not That Bed

  "If you don't believe me, come and see for yourself. I've also seen Li Bai's calligraphy, the inscription on this bed is very similar to his authentic work. It's said that because this poem was so widely spread, Li Bai specially carved it onto this bed in his later years as a memorial."

  Previously, he was loudly afraid that others would bump into this "treasure bed", but now that someone has really noticed it, he has become somewhat impatient and showy.

  But he didn't say that sentence, it's better if he didn't. Once he said that, although some people were really shocked and wanted to go up and watch the poem at that moment, there were also some people who almost spat out their food on the spot.

  Bi Lao, who was standing beside Zhou Ming's body, also had a split at the corner of his mouth, and his appearance was somewhat unbearable.

  It turns out that Zhou Ming had some interest in going forward to take a look, but after seeing Bi Lao's appearance, he suddenly changed his mind. What's wrong? How come this guy was interested when saying that Li Bai slept on this bed, but now suddenly changed his face color?

  "Studying a piece of furniture, we should start from its cultural background, which can largely help us to distinguish the genuine from the fake."

  Seeing Zhou Ming Luo's puzzled look, Bi Lao looked at the place where he was enthusiastically pointing and reciting poetry again with a somewhat speechless expression, then quietly explained to Zhou Ming Luo.

  "The bright moonlight in front of the bed, I suspect it is frost on the ground. Raise my head to gaze at the bright moon, lower my head to think of my hometown. Li Bai's 'Quiet Night Thoughts', in modern times, is indeed a household name, but many of us modern people have completely misinterpreted its meaning."

  In short, Zhou Mingluo was a bit dizzy on the spot. He certainly knew this poem, after all, it's one of the most famous poems in elementary school textbooks. It can be said that modern Chinese people who have been to school don't know this poem are really rare.

  However, misinterpretation?

  "The bed in this poem is really a bed in our modern sense? Actually it's not. The bed Li Bai referred to is a horse saddle."

  Seeing Zhou Ming Luo's confusion, Bi Lao continued to speak, but this sentence made Zhou Ming Luo even more stunned. Could it be that the bed in "Bed Before Moonlight" is a folding bed? Isn't this nonsense? But Bi Lao's next words made him almost faint on the spot.

  "To understand this bed, we need to start from the way Chinese people live. From a professional perspective, there are two types of human living habits: one is sitting on the floor and the other is sitting with feet hanging down. Sitting on the floor means squatting on the ground with legs crossed, while sitting with feet hanging down means sitting in a chair with legs dangling down. Our Chinese nation originally belonged to the former type."

  ……

  Two thousand years ago, many places in Asia were sitting on the ground, such as Japan, India, Thailand, and Korea. Even in modern Korean dramas and Japanese dramas, when the protagonist returns home, they sit on the floor. Sitting on a chair in an office doesn't count because that's work, which is a very Westernized thing.

  Europeans have been sitting on chairs for two thousand years, because the European region has a humid and cold climate. Sitting directly on the ground would be unbearable, so they had to sit high up to keep their bodies healthy and away from the damp earth.

  And we Chinese had our early human civilization mostly in the Yellow River basin, where the environment was dry and people could also sit on the ground.

  But over the course of two thousand years of evolution, the Chinese gradually changed to sitting high up, sitting on chairs.

  This high seat is not because it can't bear the dampness.

  It can be said that the Chinese nation is the only one that has changed its living habits, from sitting on the ground to sitting with feet hanging down. Other countries like Japan still sit on the floor when they return home, which is a cultural habit that cannot be easily changed.

  However, even if the Chinese people changed their way of life independently, many things were still influenced by culture until now. For example, we often say "seat", "attend", "banquet" and so on, which originated from the habit of sitting on the ground.

  When sitting on the ground, Chinese people sit down and enter the seat, sitting on the mat, so words like "seat", "attend" are still not called "chair position", "out of chair" even if modern Chinese people have changed to vertical foot sitting. I guess whoever calls it that way will feel very awkward.

  There is another interesting thing, that is the word "president". The Book of Rites has rules, when five people live together, the elder must sit separately, that is to say, for more than five people, those with high virtues and prestige must sit on a separate mat, this mat is called the president's seat, referring to the leader among a group of people.

  Still used today, the highest leader in the country is still called Chairman, rather than "Master Chair"!!

  Knowing this history, the question arises, how did we change from sitting on the ground to hanging our feet? When was it changed?

  The answer is the bed in Li Bai's "bedside moonlight" which was also known as a hu bed, or what people today call a folding stool.

  At that time, the nomadic brothers brought us many new things, including their flipping down from horseback and opening a bundle of things on the horse's back, sitting under their buttocks, which is a saddle.

  Many people still use this thing now, go out for a cool ride, take a stroll in the park with a mat is the most convenient.

  At that time, people called it a "barbarian bed".

  Li Bai's "Quiet Night Thoughts" refers to a bed, which is actually a mat. The context is clear and the action is distinct, that is, Li Bai holding a mat, sitting in the courtyard, thinking of his hometown under the bright moonlight.

  This is intuitive. If Li Bai's bed was really the kind of bed we usually refer to, how would we lift our heads or lower them while lying on it? When you lie in bed and look up at the sky, you don't need to lift your head at all - just open your eyes and you can see the sky directly. When you want to look down at the ground, you should prop yourself up and "stick your head out" to look downwards, rather than lowering your head.

  Li Bai must have been lying in bed like that, only able to "gaze at the bright moon" and "think of his hometown".

  Moreover, for those who have a good understanding of Chinese architectural history, they would basically know that the doors and windows of Tang Dynasty buildings are very small. The doors were made of solid wood and did not allow light to pass through. It was only after the Song Dynasty that latticed doors appeared. There are only four existing Tang Dynasty buildings in China, such as the Foguang Temple in Shanxi Province, with extremely small windows, making it almost impossible for moonlight to enter the room.

  Especially after the windows were pasted with paper, the moonlight was absolutely unable to enter. So Li Bai was sitting in the yard, on a mat looking at the moon and thinking of his hometown.

  There is another poem, also written by Li Bai, "Chang Gan Xing" "My hair was just covering my forehead, playing with flowers in front of the door. My husband rode a bamboo horse and came, circling around me and teasing me with green plums." The poem speaks in the voice of a little girl, saying that when I was young, I sat at the door with a horse whip, picked a flower in front of the door to play, and a boy rode a bamboo horse, circled around me and teased me. The meaning is very clear.

  But if you interpret it according to the modern meaning of "bed", it would be very strange. Chinese beds are all placed against the wall, and most modern people do so, with one head of the bed against the wall at home. The ancients were even more so, basically with two sides against the wall. Looking only at the first two sentences, it can still be explained that a little girl is playing with flowers in front of the door, but from the beginning of the second half of the sentence, a little boy enters the house and circles around a little girl lying on a "bed" with two sides against the wall? If he could really circle around once, he would be a ghost.

  So the beds in ancient poems, eight or nine out of ten refer to the Hu bed, also known as a folding stool. Of course, this is not to say that all beds in ancient poems refer to the Hu bed, "The Book of Songs" says "In the tenth month, crickets chirp under my bed." which refers to the bed as a piece of furniture for sleeping.

  October, the weather turned cold, and the cricket crawled into my room under my bed, full of poetic charm. The bed, in its early days, was a sleeping tool, but also a sitting tool. According to "Shuowen", it is explained as "bed, a seat for resting one's body". It mainly refers to the reclining chair used for sitting.

  With a mixture of laughter and tears, Zhou Ming explained the concept of cultural heritage to Lou. Bi Lao suddenly looked at the middle-aged man in front with a silly smile. The other party was carrying an authentic arhat bed, but said it was a "mat" from Li Bai's poem, isn't this ridiculous?

  And Zhou Ming was secretly relieved at this moment, fortunately, Bi Lao had told him such a basic common sense... otherwise, he would still think that the bed in Li Bai's poem refers to the modern bed for sleeping.

  But this is not the fault of modern people, mainly because ancient people's nouns are generally more general, one noun may correspond to several things, such as "bed" can refer to both a bed for sleeping and a reclining chair, but modern people's nouns are clearly classified, a bed refers only to a bed for sleeping, a reclining chair is called a reclining chair, completely unrelated.

  It's not easy to tell them apart unless someone has studied furniture. His previous level of furniture knowledge was mostly focused on the material aspect, and if you asked him to identify what kind of wood a bed was made of, he might have some idea, but as for understanding the historical and cultural connotations, he didn't know much, after all, China's 5,000-year history is too long and vast, unless he deliberately studied it, it would be difficult for him to understand too much.

  However, amidst the embarrassment, Zhou Ming's mind suddenly flashed a strange idea. He seemed to recall some strange couplets he had read before, such as "The bright moonlight in front of the bed, two pairs of shoes on the ground..."

  He used to think that these couplets were quite rhythmic and interesting, but now they seem like a tragedy.

  It's just like that middle-aged man in front, a tragedy who doesn't understand history and culture, easily deceived and confused.