Warning the Crocodile. 祭鳄鱼文

My boss continued with the story of how Hán Yù 韩愈 (768-824) n. a leading Tang statesman, philosopher and poet warned the crocodile in a declaration named 祭鳄鱼文 [jì è yú wén] literally translated as “Sacrifice the Crocodile” when he became the governor of ChaoZhou. At that time, crocodiles were infesting the water of the Han river and were responsible for the deaths of many domesticated animals and even human.

That is intolerable, Han Yu decided. But before he attempted to get rid of them, he first sacrificed a goat and a pig to the crocodiles and wrote an essay to them. It went something like this – “This river belongs to my emperor and you are trespassing. I’m giving you 3 days to move out peacefully. If 3 days is not enough, I’ll make it 5. But if you are still not out by 7, I will take it you have no intention of leaving so I will declare war on you! And I will shoot with poisoned arrows till all of you perish. Now, don’t you regret then!” Not only are the Chinese language crazy, but they are too! Imagine making a formal declaration of war on crocodiles. No Pearl harbour here, you’ve been warned! But you can’t help admiring them for being so civilized. According to the legend, believe it or not; it was effective for not long after, all the crocodile were gone from Han river.

Before this declaration, Han river was known as "鳄溪" or "恶溪" both pronounced as [èliú]. 鳄 = crocodile and 恶= evil; and both of them are pronounced as è. Same sound for two different meanings but this case the two meanings mean the same for the crocodiles are evil, at least from the inhabitants standpoint. The Chinese are very creative with this type of word play…