Waiting for a hare to bump into a tree stump, forcing plants to grow too quickly... these familiar idioms are actually map cannons!

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Waiting for a hare to bump into a tree stump, forcing plants to grow too quickly... these familiar idioms are actually map cannons! 2018-08-03 19:58:20 Dàyú Mànhuà – 379 people participated, 226 comments. “Map guns” have always been close \"friends\" of the Chinese people; whenever someone mentions a place name, many people show expressions of realization and curiosity. For example, \"Are the manhole covers in Henan considered a valuable commodity?\" ”“Do you people from Shanxi just sit on the ground and coal appears? ”“Can people from Beijing get into Tsinghua with just 300 points? ”“What else do you people from Guangxi do besides eating noodles? ”Over time, you’ll realize that people really come up with one after another excuse for regional discrimination; to the point that those who travel to the Northeast will search on Baidu very carefully for answers to questions like, \"What should you say when someone asks you ‘What are you staring at?’\" ”Of course, aside from the amazing Hu Jianren, map-based mockery actually isn’t a recent phenomenon. As early as the Pre-Qin period, there were already many such forms of ridicule. Back then, there was a village called Dongzhou Village, inhabited by dozens of families such as the Lao Qi family and the Lao Lu family. At that time, square dancing hadn’t yet become popular in Dongzhou Village, and the local people lacked entertainment options. So, the hardworking and intelligent villagers gradually developed a way of chatting based on categorizing people into groups, in order to have more topics to talk about after meals and to pass the time. For example, people in Dongzhou Village would describe those from other villages using directions, leading to terms like “Dongyi, Xirong, Beidi, Nanman, Zhongdongzhou.” Terms like Yi, Rong, Di, and Man certainly don’t sound positive. Confucius from the Lao Lu family once used these terms to mock some villagers for lacking manners. Later, internal conflicts within Dongzhou Village led to many well-known figures from that era getting involved in these disputes. They would “compete with the villagers during the day” and spend nights creating jokes. As the saying goes, hard work pays off, and soon, many jokes related to map-based mockery emerged. For instance, the Lao Zhao family and the Lao Yan family often mocked each other. There’s a famous joke called “Learning to Walk in Handan,” which was created to mock the Lao Yan family. Just the image of them crawling back home was enough to make the video gain over 100,000 views in no time. Upon closer inspection, it turns out that every family had its own set of jokes targeting them. For example, the Lao Wei family was mocked as being foolish, while the Lao Qi family was criticized for being pretentious. But there were also a few families who became constant targets of mockery throughout the village, always playing the roles of “Virgo, the national football team, or Italy during World War II.” It seems that the villagers of Dongzhou Village had already reached a consensus on which family was the most targeted—everyone pointed at the Lao Song family (the State of Song). Eventually, a joke spread that the Lao Song family lived in the center of the village and had a high level of education, so they shouldn’t have been targeted. But the problem was that their family background wasn’t good. A family’s background determines their fate. Although the Lao Song family didn’t hold any leadership positions for many years, they were naturally proud, and soon they were respected as “gentlemen” by those who mocked them. But in this village full of conflicts, being a “gentleman” meant nothing different from being easy to bully. In short, in the early days, map-based mockery took the form of “Dongyi, Nanman, Xirong, Beidi” and “The Lao Song family is really funny.” What gave the Lao Song family some comfort was that they weren’t the only ones being targeted; there were other families who shared their burden. For example, the Zheng family (the State of Zheng) even attracted the attention of the famous figure Han Fei, who wrote an entire book full of jokes about them. The Zheng family was originally one of the wealthy families in Dongzhou Village, but over time they became weaker and were bullied by the village’s powerful families. However, scholars believe that these jokes were actually aimed at merchants, but since the Zheng family was closely associated with merchants, they also became targets. Moreover, the Song and Zheng families together gave rise to the idiom “Zheng Zhao Song Lung.” It can be said that “Zheng Zhao Song Lung” represents the peak of Pre-Qin map-based mockery. By the way, both the Zheng family and the Lao Song family are from present-day Henan. The third group to be constantly targeted was the A Chu family (the State of Chu). Everyone knew that the A Chu family was different from the rest in Dongzhou Village. Their ancestors came from Nanman Village, so they were considered outsiders and were constantly ostracized by the local residents. The A Chu family was frustrated because they thought they had done well through hard work and were actively contributing to the village’s development. But everyone kept calling them “barbarians,” which made them lose any sense of pride. Eventually, the A Chu family gave up. Once, they attacked the Xiao Sui family (the State of Sui). Xiao Sui was confused: “I’m innocent.” ”Achu’s reply was simple as well: “I am a barbarian.” ”From then on, “I’m a rascal; who am I afraid of?” became A Chu’s signature tagline. With all these factors combined, A Chu’s family also became a target for the joke-tellers in the village. The most famous stories related to them include “Yan Zi’s Mission to Chu” and “Marking the Boat to Find the Sword”. Finally, you might wonder why there are so few jokes about the Lao Qin family The answer is obvious! Daring to make jokes about Qin – aren’t they seeking punishment for that?