Necklace and Calabash: A Chinese Detective Story (Judge Dee Mysteries) Read online

  He found Ma Joong and Chiao Tai in the restaurant. They had sat down at a window-table and were cracking melon seeds. The two tall men jumped up, broad grins on their sun-tanned faces.

  ‘We had two hectic days, sir! Slept in the woods!’ Ma Joong shouted. ‘Killed two boars, huge fellows. Hope you had a good rest, sir! How did your fishing go?’

  ‘Not too bad. I caught a fine river perch’

  Chiao Tai surveyed Judge Dee's haggard face with a worried look. He thought his master needed a drink. Knowing Judge Dee's abstemious habits, however, he said after some hesitation:

  ‘What about joining us in a small cup or two, sir?’ As the judge nodded, Chiao Tai shouted at the waiter: ‘Two large jars of the best!’

  The judge sat down. Over his shoulder he told the waiter:

  ‘Make it three.’

  POSTSCRIPT

  JUDGE DEE was a historical person; he lived from A.D. 630 to 700, during the Tang Dynasty. Besides earning fame as a great detective, he was also a brilliant statesman who, in the second half of his career, played an important role in the internal and foreign policies of the Tang Empire. The adventures related here, however, are entirely fictitious.

  Master Gourd is the type of high-minded Taoist recluse that figures often in ancient Chinese literature. Taoism and Confucianism are the two basic ways of thought that have dominated Chinese religion and philosophy; Buddhism was introduced later, around the beginning of our era. Confucianism is realistic and very much of this world, Taoism mystic and wholly unworldly. Judge Dee was a Confucianist as most Chinese scholar-officials, with a sympathetic interest in Taoism, but anti-Buddhist. The pronouncement of Master Gourd on p. 3 is a direct quotation from the famous Taoist text Tao-te-ching (cf. J. J. L. Duyvendak, Tao Te Ching, The Wisdom of the East Series, London 1954, p. 40). Judge Dee's remark on Confucius fishing with a rod instead of with a net (p. 61)is quoted from the Confucianist Classic Lun-yü (cf. Arthur Waley, The Analects of Confucius, London 1949, p. 128).

  The calabash or bottle-gourd has, since ancient times, played an important role in Chinese philosophy and art. Being very durable in its dried state, it is used as a receptacle for medicine, and hence it is the traditional shop-sign of drug-dealers. Taoist sages are said to have carried the elixir of longevity in a calabash, hence it has become the traditional symbol for immortality. It also symbolizes the relativity of all things, as expressed in the ancient saying: The entire universe may be found within the compass of a calabash.’ Even today one will often see old Chinese or Japanese gentlemen leisurely polishing a calabash with the palms of their hands, this being considered conducive to quiet meditation.

  The abacus, in Chinese called suan-p'an, ‘calculating tray’, is a very effective ‘ready reckoner’, today still widely used in both China and Japan. Based on the decimal system, it consists of an oblong rectangular wooden frame, crossed by ten or more parallel wire-rods (see the first plate of the present novel; Tai Min's abacus had twelve rods). On every rod are threaded seven wooden beads, divided into groups of five and two by a cross-bar bisecting the frame lengthwise. Each of the five beads on the first rod counts 1, each of the two counts 5; pushed to the cross-bar they count 10. The beads on the next rod count as tens, those on the third rod as hundreds, and so on. The abacus is used for addition, subtraction, multiplication and division. Literary evidence proves that it was widely used in China in the fifteenth century, but it is doubtful whether it existed in this form in Judge Dee's time. A detailed description will be found in Joseph Needham's monumental work Science and Civilization in China, vol. III (Cambridge, 1959), p. 74.

  As regards the medicine Judge Dee prescribes on p. 36 of the present novel, it should be noted that the medicinal properties of the plant Ephedra vulgaris, Chinese ma-huang, were known in China long before they were recognized in the West.

  The plates I drew in the style of sixteenth-century illustrated blockprints, and they represent, therefore, costumes and customs of the Ming period rather than those of the Tang dynasty. Note that in Judge Dee's time the Chinese did not wear pigtails; that custom was imposed on them after A.D. 1644, when the Manchus had conquered China. The men did their hair up in a top-knot as shown on the plate on p. 111 of the present novel, and they wore caps both inside and outside the house. They did not smoke, for tobacco and opium were introduced into China only a few centuries ago.

  Robert van Gulik