Top and below: People celebrate the traditional Lantern Festival in Hebei and Jiangsu provinces. The character, or festivals, is related to celebrations. Photos Provided to China Daily

The character that can create an instant festival despite its prosaic roots

The character 節(jié) is, in a word, an instant party-attach it to the end of just about anything and you've got yourself a holiday. Tack it on to 勞動(dòng) (láodòng), or labor, and you've got 勞動(dòng)節(jié) (Láodòngjié), Labor Day; add it to 婦女 (fùnǚ), woman, and you've got 婦女節(jié) (Fùnǚjié), Women's Day. Add it to spring, 春 (chūn), and you've got the biggest holiday of the year: 春節(jié)(Chūnjié), or Spring Festival. 節(jié), in other words, has the power to transform the dead of winter into a raging, baijiu-fueled, firework-popping celebration.

Given its alchemical powers, you might be surprised at 節(jié)'s rather prosaic roots - its original meaning, as recorded in bronzeware inscriptions (1300 BC-200 BC), was "bamboo joint", the ridges along poles of bamboo. At that time, 節(jié) was written as 節(jié), which combined the radicals at the top of the character for bamboo, 竹 (zhú), with the pronunciation character 即 (jí).

The appearance of the character started to change during the Qin Dynasty (221 BC-207 BC), when cursive writing simplified the ? at the top of 節(jié) to 艸. Later still, people started leaving out the left side of the character 即, simplifying it into the modern 節(jié).

The meaning of 節(jié), on the other hand, took a much more convoluted path. Around the Han Dynasty (206 BC-AD 220), dictionaries began listing a second definition for節(jié), "bamboo cord", thanks to the resemblance between bamboo ridges and knotted up bits of twine.

Here's where the semantic gods of association begin to run wild. Because twine was used as a restraint, 節(jié) gave birth to 節(jié)制 (jiézhì), which means "restrict" or "moderate." This spun off a host of new words related to restraint or restriction: 節(jié)約 (jiéyuē) and 節(jié)儉 (jiéjiǎn), for example, both refer to frugality; 節(jié)食 (jiéshí) means to diet; 節(jié)欲 (jiéyù) is abstinence and節(jié)哀 (jié'āi) refers to overcoming grief. When people pass away, we often say 節(jié)哀順變 (jié'āi shùnbiàn), which is short for 節(jié)制哀傷 (jiézhì āishāng) "restrain grief", and 順應(yīng)變故 (shùnyìng biàngù) "accept misfortune".

節(jié) took another interesting turn with the word 符節(jié) (fújié), which in ancient China referred to the bamboo certifications given to royal envoys. Diplomats came to be called 使節(jié) (shǐjié), which in turn gave way to an army of terms related to the messengers' supposedly noble characters. Among these are 氣節(jié) (qìjié, integrity) and 節(jié)操 (jiécāo, moral principles). In ancient Chinese culture節(jié)操 was extremely important, a sentiment expressed in the phrase,"餓死事小，失節(jié)事大"(è sǐ shì xiǎo, shījié shì dà), which means that starving to death is nothing compared with losing one's integrity.

A third line of semantic evolution was based on the observation that bamboo joints occur one after the other. As a result, 節(jié)節(jié) came to describe something that occurs steadily or in succession. During a war, two defeats followed by a retreat is called 節(jié)節(jié)敗退 (jié jié bàituì). When prices continually rise it's called 節(jié)節(jié)上升 (jié jié shàngshēng). The saying 芝麻開(kāi)花-節(jié)節(jié)高 (zhīma kāihuā - jié jié gāo, sesame flowers open - and grow steadily tall) means that things are always changing for the better, like a sesame flower blossoming upwards.

Because bamboo joints divide the pole into sections, 節(jié) is also used to describe things in life that have stages. Book chapters and sections are called 章節(jié) (zhāngjié); performance order is called 節(jié)目 (jiémù); and seasons are called 季節(jié) (jìjié) and 節(jié)氣 (jiéqì). It's this that led to the use of 節(jié) to refer to holidays, which were originally used to mark seasonal changes. In addition to 春節(jié) (Chūnjié), there's also 清明節(jié) (Qīngmíngjié) or Tomb Sweeping Day, 端午節(jié) (Duānwǔjié) or Dragon Boat Festival, 中秋節(jié) (Zhōngqiūjié) or Mid-Autumn Festival, and so on. Go ahead, try and invent your own. My first nomination: 巧克力節(jié) (Qiǎokèlìjié, Chocolate Festival).

Translated by Liz Tung

Courtesy of The World of Chinese, www.theworldofchinese.com

The World of Chinese

(China Daily 03/01/2013 page27)