This English version was translated from the Chinese original with AI assistance. The Chinese text is authoritative.
Money is something that, even as a first-rank high official, one could hardly find on the “payroll.” (Illustration: Zhiqing / Kanzhongguo)
薪水 (xīnshui, “salary”)
The earliest use of the word “薪水” comes from the Book of Jin, “Biography of Liu Shi”: “As for matters of firewood and water (薪水), he provided for them all himself.” It refers to chores such as chopping firewood and fetching water, not “wages,” and has nothing to do with money.
It was, however, in this very period that “薪水” gradually took on the meaning of “remuneration” or “wages.” Even so, because the government of the entire Western Jin never minted a single copper coin, although official records state with certainty that officials’ emoluments included rice, silk, silk floss, money, vegetable fields, and corvée servants, even by this account “money” ranked only “fourth” among the components of “wages,” clearly less important than goods in kind such as grain and cloth. Moreover, many specific records show that the “wages” of regular officials in the Western Jin in fact consisted only of grain, cloth and allotted land. For example, a first-rank official’s monthly stipend was five hu of grain; twice a year, in spring and autumn, he was issued a total of three hundred bolts of silk and two hundred jin of silk floss; a first-rank official was allotted fifty qing of land, five qing less for each rank down, so that a ninth-rank official was allotted only ten qing.
Clearly, money was something that, even as a first-rank high official, one could hardly find on the “payroll.” If it was so for officials, ordinary working people naturally had even less to hope for.
乌龙 (wūlóng, “black dragon”; “blunder”)
According to the Miscellaneous Records of the Cloud Immortals by Feng Zhi of the Tang dynasty, Zhang Ran of Kuaiji in the Jin dynasty kept a dog named “Wulong” (Black Dragon). Zhang Ran treated Wulong very well, and Wulong was extremely loyal to Zhang Ran. Zhang Ran went away on official business and did not return home for more than a year. His wife could not bear the loneliness and had an affair with a servant of the household. Being away, Zhang Ran naturally did not know of his wife’s infidelity, but Wulong saw everything.
Later the scandal between the servant and Zhang’s wife was about to come out, and they plotted together to murder Zhang Ran. One day, while Zhang Ran was drunk, the servant took a knife and entered the bedroom to stab him. Unexpectedly, Wulong had long since seen through the servant’s intentions; keeping watch beside the bed, Wulong leapt out in time and fought the servant. The commotion woke Zhang Ran, who understood everything at once. Having subdued the servant and established the truth, he killed the servant.
The story of “Wulong saving his master” was passed on as a celebrated tale and written into books, and “乌龙” became a byword for a loyal dog. The Tang poet Bai Juyi wrote: “Wulong lies undisturbed; the bluebirds fly chasing each other.” Li Shangyin also mentioned Wulong in a poem: “From afar I know the small pavilion is still in the slanting sunlight; how I envy Wulong lying on the brocade cushion.”
In the 1960s and 70s, Hong Kong reporters began to use the word “乌龙” in their reports to mean the English “own goal” (a ball put into one’s own goal). After that the media began to use the word “乌龙” widely. And so the name of a famous dog in history was “stolen” by football!
