bÇixĂŹng (bÇi·xĂŹng {hundred â [all]} · surnames â [common people | all existing surnames] çŸć§) â Tap/click to show/hide the âflashcardâ
[Notes: Tap/click on a PÄ«nyÄ«n (PÄ«n·yÄ«n {Piecing Together of} · Sounds â [Pinyin] æŒéł) expression to reveal its âflashcardâ; tap/click on a âflashcardâ or its PÄ«nyÄ«n (PÄ«n·yÄ«n {Piecing Together of} · Sounds â [Pinyin] æŒéł) expression to hide the âflashcardâ. đ đ đ icons mean đ Reveal All, đ Reveal Advanced, and đ Reveal None re all the âflashcardsâ in the heading, paragraph, etc. that they are placed at the beginning of.]
With the deadly shooting wars now being fought in places like Israel and Ukraine, jw.org recently featured an article with the following title:
Who Will Save the Civilians?âWhat Does the Bible Say?
đ đ đ ZhĂ nhuÇ (ZhĂ n·huÇ War · Fire â [Flames of War] æç« æ°ç«) WĂșqĂng (WĂș·qĂng {Not Having} · Feeling â [Being Heartless] æ æ çĄæ ), ShĂ©i (Who è° èȘ°) LĂĄi ({Will Come} æ„ äŸ) ZhÄngjiĂč ({to Save} æŻæ) WĂșgĆ« (WĂș·gĆ« Without · Guilt â [Innocent] æ èŸ çĄèŸ) de (âs ç) BÇixĂŹng (BÇi·xĂŹng {Hundred â [All]} · Surnames â [Common People] çŸć§)?
This weekâs MEotW is the last word in the above Mandarin title, âbÇixĂŹng (bÇi·xĂŹng {hundred â [all]} · surnames â [common people | all existing surnames] çŸć§)â, which corresponds to âciviliansâ, or âcommon peopleâ. And, as the Wikipedia page for this expression says:
The word âlaoâ (Chinese: è; lit. âoldâ) is often added as a prefix before âbaixingâ.[source]
Origins?
âBÇixĂŹng (BÇi·xĂŹng {hundred â [all]} · surnames â [common people | all existing surnames] çŸć§)â literally means âhundred surnamesâ. Regarding how a hundred surnames came to represent the people of China, the above-mentioned Wikipedia article claims:
A confederation of tribes living along the Yellow River were the ancestors of what later became the Han ethnic group in China.[source][source] Several large tribes, including the Huangdi tribes (Chinese: é»ćžæ), Yandi tribes (Chinese: çćžæ), and the Yi tribes, formed an alliance that consisted of roughly 100 tribes. This alliance is the origin of the baixing () or the âhundred surnames.â
Around 2,000 Han Chinese surnames are currently in use, but 19 of these surnames are used by about half of the Han Chinese people. About 87% of the population shares 100 surnames.[source][source]
Logically, as the population of the grouping of tribes that eventually became China grew, for a time there were fewer than one hundred surnames, for a relatively brief time there were exactly one hundred surnames, and then there were over a hundred surnames. Whether the particular claim above about there having been about a hundred early tribes is accurate, somewhere along the line, the idea may have taken root that one hundred surnames were generally representative of the people of China, especially if itâs true, as claimed above, that a hundred surnames covers about 87% of Chinaâs population.
Another possibility is that the âbÇi (hundred [â [numerous; all [kinds of]]] çŸ)â in âbÇixĂŹng (bÇi·xĂŹng {hundred â [all]} · surnames â [common people | all existing surnames] çŸć§)â is used to effectively mean âallâ, like it does in âbÇiwĂč (bÇi·wĂč {hundred â [all]} · things çŸç©)â. A similar expression is âwĂ nwĂč (wĂ n·wĂč {ten thousand â [all]} · things äžç© èŹç©)â, in which âwĂ n ({ten thousand} [â [all; a very great number of]] äž èŹ/äž)â, which literally means âten thousandâ, is used to mean âallâ, or âa very great number ofâ.
Either way, as we can see from the above Mandarin jw.org article title, besides being used to refer to the common people of China, âbÇixĂŹng (bÇi·xĂŹng {hundred â [all]} · surnames â [common people | all existing surnames] çŸć§)â is now also used to refer to the common people of other nations as well.
The Book of Family Surnames
The expression âbÇixĂŹng (bÇi·xĂŹng {hundred â [all]} · surnames â [common people | all existing surnames] çŸć§)â is apparently referenced in the title of the classic Chinese text BÇijiÄ XĂŹng ((BÇi·jiÄ {Hundred â [Many; Various; All]} · Familiesâ çŸćź¶) (XĂŹng Surnames ć§) â [Hundred Family Surnnames/The Book of Family Names (classic Chinese text listing common Chinese surnames)]), which is the subject of the following summary from Wikipedia:
The Hundred Family Surnames (Chinese: çŸćź¶ć§), commonly known as Bai Jia Xing,[source] also translated as Hundreds of Chinese Surnames,[source] is a classic Chinese text composed of common Chinese surnames. An unknown author compiled the book during the Song dynasty (960â1279).[source] The book lists 507 surnames.[source] Of these, 441 are single-character surnames and 66 are double-character surnames.[source] About 800 names have been derived from the original ones.[source]
In the dynasties following the Song, the 13th-century Three Character Classic, the Hundred Family Surnames, and the 6th-century Thousand Character Classic came to be known as San Bai Qian (Three, Hundred, Thousand), from the first character in their titles. They served as instructional books for children,[source] becoming the almost universal introductory literary texts for students (almost exclusively boys) from elite backgrounds and even for a number of ordinary villagers.
Help for Dealing With the Easily-Offended?
Years ago, in the door-to-door work, I called on a Chinese man who had a double-character surname. Being a Chinese person who had grown up in Canada and who had not even heard of QĂn ShÇhuĂĄng ((QĂn {Qin (dynasty)} 秊) (ShÇ·huĂĄng Beginning · Emperor ć§ç) (the founder of the QĂn dynasty and the first emperor of China)) until I saw a movie about this remarkable historical figure when I was an adult, I was not familiar with the background of the relatively rare double-character surnames, so I innocently asked him about it. However, rather than being flattered by the interest and politely enlightening me, he chose to be offended that I didnât know something about his background and culture that he had known since his childhood and justâunhelpfullyâsaid something like, âDon’t you know about the history of China?â
Well, dear reader, after learning of BÇijiÄ XĂŹng ((BÇi·jiÄ {Hundred â [Many; Various; All]} · Familiesâ çŸćź¶) (XĂŹng Surnames ć§) â [Hundred Family Surnnames/The Book of Family Names (classic Chinese text listing common Chinese surnames)]) and the double-character surnames in it, perhaps you may be spared a similarly dreary experience in the ministry. (Since we seek to reach everyone in our territories, we can end up meeting all kinds of people, like Jesus did. Some of them may be proud, petty, and unpleasant, but then again, some of them may be sheeplike, hungry for the truth, and appreciative of our imperfect efforts.)