The 'Chinese' Theory: For and Against

[Jorge_Stolfi]

[Google AI] then says that both versions of the final sub-entry are wrong. The correct text (it says "according to Tao Hongjing’s compilation"), would be 
鸡白蠹：能肥脂 which it translates as "chicken[-coop] white grub: makes one's fat".  However, the same Google AI, a couple of months ago, when I asked about that sub-entry, gave a different hanzi version that it translated as "fattens pigs" and explained that it was probably some farmer who added that marginal note and it got copied into later editions.  Sigh.

I pressed Google AI again about that sub-entry.  It admitted that a scholar or doctor by ~1400 CE would have got that "rooster" entry from the Zhenghe Bencao, which (it claimed) read 鸡白蠹：肥脂 .  The last two characters, it said, meant "makes one's fat fatter" rather than "fattens pigs", a reading that was due to someone mistaking the hanzi of "fat" for that of "pig".

Fine. But then it complained that I my indentation of that entry had implied that the provenance field［生］平泽 applied to the whole entry, and said that it instead applied to those 鸡白蠹 only, and that the provenance was actually from Joseon, and thus that the 鸡白蠹 were actually grubs of a wild beetle imported from Korea.  

Then asked why were the grubs described as 鸡 = "chicken [coop]" if they were wild insects.  It explained that the "coop" part was a common misconception, and the 鸡 actually meant that the grubs just resembled chickens.

Then I asked why that sub-entry was included in the red rooster recipe at all, if it was about grubs that grew in the wild and not even in chicken coops.  It complimented me for my shrewdness and explained that it was because the Han Dynasty philosophers believed that, since those grubs resembled chickens, they were spontaneously generated in the wild by influence of the Qi from the chickens. That is why the Shenong Bencao authors felt that they belonged in the "rooster" entry.

Then I thought of asking whether it had any source for that theory that chicken Qi generated grubs in the Korean wilderness.

It admitted that it had no sources and had just deduced the explanation from the Han Dynasty view of biology etc.

Then I decided that the best solution was to get a beer and watch some soothing You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view. on Youtube.

All the best, --stolfi