Return to the dense forest of words

Author: Chen Youzhu
Publisher:
Publish Date: 2003-02-22
Features: In Xia Gong's Record of Lazily Seeking Old Dreams, there is an interesting account: "Recently, Comrade Hu Yuzhi asked me, 'Did you create two new characters in Guilin?' One was 'kuǎ,' and the other was 'gǎo.' I admitted that I created them based on practical needs, but soon, these new characters, which were not included in general dictionaries, were accepted by other newspapers and magazines." (Page 440) Characters are man-made. Everyone can create characters, and everyone may be called Cangjie. However, whether the created characters can be recognized by the public and accepted by society is another matter. If they are accepted by the public, then the person who created them may have the chance to become Cangjie. The characters 'gǎo' and 'kuǎ' were indeed not included in general dictionaries, but the post-liberation Xinhua Dictionary did include them. An example usage of 'gǎo' is 'to understand the thoughts,' and an example usage of 'kuǎ' is 'to smash the US imperialists.' The semantic and sensory meanings of these two characters were all newly, and after being used by about two generations, it is as if they were always there, as the saying goes, 'custom makes it so.' Now, people feel that they have always existed. This means that this creation has been accepted by the public. Twenty years ago, I thought the character 'gǎo' was created in the liberation areas, but I was wrong. During my time in Guilin, I often saw Xia Gong, yet I was unaware of his new creations—how foolish I was! I once called the character 'gǎo' a 'miraculous' word, with its miraculous multiple meanings and sensory perception, which is precisely what creation is.
V. When a Person Becomes a "Molecule"
A person is not necessarily a "molecule" from birth. When a person becomes a molecule, it is a very bitter process. Understanding the process of a person becoming a "molecule" will make it easy to understand the modern history of China. Let's take a few "molecules" from a large book for observation:
Opposition, wavering, active, right-wing (the book explains: it is generally sufficient to call them right-wing, there is no need to call them oppositionists).
"Uprising" (Note: Quoted, actually referring to wavering)
Left-leaning, moderate (another place refers to them as "moderate masses").
Intellectual.
The first five molecules to become people became villains. Before or after this series of molecules appeared, in the continuous political movements, various people turned into molecules or molecules turned into people, such as:
Corrupt, bad, landlord, rich farmer, destructive, counter-revolutionary, landlord-rich farmer counter-revolutionary, Hu Feng, anti-Party, class alien, Trotskyist, right-leaning, right-leaning opportunism, "Three Anti", black-gang, revisionist (also known as "counter-revolutionary revisionist").
Oh, molecules, molecules—now people see that when a molecule becomes a person, it mostly becomes a villain. Good people don't change into molecules much anymore. For example, in the early 1950s, the "Three Anti" movement was against corruption, waste, and bureaucracy; it opposed these three types of people, but only the corrupt were called "corrupt," while the other two were never heard of being called "waste