As Happy As Fish In Water In Ancient China 在中国古代如鱼得水

Chinese fish charm. 

The ancient philosopher Zhuangzi (ca. 2nd cent. BCE) apparently took it as a given that fish are happy. Michael Carr tells us about a debate between Zhuangzi and his friend Huizi (惠施, c. 370-310 BCE): “Can humans know the happiness of fish?”. Similar references to fish and happiness can also be found in other Chinese classics, for example the Shijing (诗经, the ‘Classic of Poetry’), according to Carr.

So, why did the ancient Chinese believe that fish are happy? This is one of many questions which came up while I was studying Chinese language and culture. The reason for exploring the historical connection between fish and happiness was the Chinese four-character idiom or chengyu which is still in use today: 如鱼得水 (lit. like-fish-get-water) which is usually translated into English as ‘(happy) like fish in water’. While the meanings of the two expressions are reasonably similar, however, it is important to realise that they differ as much as anything that can be ‘translated’ between Chinese and English, that is to say, heaps. The semantic subtleties of one language compared to another are not easy to quantify or explain, but in order for a Westerner to understand Chinese, one needs to at least make a good stab at it.

The following is an overview of what I found.

Water

To understand fish, it is first necessary to look at the significance and symbolism of water in Chinese culture, and how this differs from Western ideas. In China, because of specific geographical and climatic conditions, humans experienced water in a much more dramatic way:

The ecology of the Chinese—their adaptation to the physical environment—has influenced their culture in many ways. Life on the great river floodplains has always been a hard life. “Heaven nourishes and destroys” is an ancient saying. On the broad stretches of the plain the patient Chinese farmers were at the mercy of the weather, dependent upon Heaven’s gift of sun and rain. They were forced to accept natural calamity in the form of drought, flood, pestilence, and famine. This is in striking contrast to the lot of Europeans, who lived in a land of variegated topography. People in the West, either on the Mediterranean or on the European continent, were never far from a water supply... Fairbank 2006, p. 17 *

The Chinese were more ‘at the mercy of the weather’ because of the characteristics of their physical environment:   

....90 per cent of China is covered by mountains... As a result, Chinese have historically been crowded into river valleys and coastal regions, as well as the plains formed by river deltas. Chinese society and culture exist within the landscape of Chinese topography, a topography of mountains and rivers. Goulde *

The mountainous parts of China are generally harsh and inhospitable, while the river flats offered wide stretches of fertile farmland and a good supply of water, and that is where people settled. However, the great rivers flooded regularly throughout known history, occasionally spectacularly and dramatically: The widespread floods in China in one year, 1931, alone, killed about 4 million people* (Wikipedia 1931_China_floods.htm). Often, there seemed to be either too much, or else too little water – flood or drought – and not enough of a balance in between.

Nevertheless, these harrowing experiences did not persuade the Chinese to regard water as treacherous or destructive. On the contrary, from antiquity until now it has been seen as a powerful natural force, but not necessarily an adverse one. In the ancient philosophical writings like the Zhuangzi, or the Kongzi, water is portrayed as beneficial to humankind, as a symbol for purity and naturalness, and as an example of how humans should conduct themselves. For example, in the Laozi (written during the Warring States Period, 403-222 BCE), water was repeatedly used as a metaphor for the highest philosophical ideal, the Dao 道itself. Water as a metaphor occupies a central role in the text:

上善若水。
水善利万物而不争、
处众人之所恶。
故几於道。

“The highest good is like water:
It benefits the ten thousand creatures; yet it does not strain,
but is content with the places that humans disdain.
This is why water is so near to the Way.” *

Laozi
(Dao De Jing I. 8. trans. Waley, with minor changes by Martina)

Water as a metaphor continues to be relevant in contemporary discourse. The example below depicts water as a force which will overpower those who are seen as working against the good of mankind. This is a political news text from the 1990s:  

李登辉背逆历史潮流,“两国论”不过是个逆向漩涡,  
Li Denghui [name] is resisting the currents of history, [but] his idea of ‘Two Chinas’ is merely [like] a vortex of water twisting in the opposite direction,

根本阻挡不了奔腾不息的潮流滚滚东去... *

he is  fundamentally unable to check the surge which continues rolling eastwards.

Here, the PRC media is rhetorically shredding the then leader of Taiwan, Li Denghui, because he has endorsed the ‘Two China’ policy (which advocates independence of Taiwan from China), a policy which is strongly opposed by Mainland China. The sentence excerpt uses a great number of water metaphors to undermine Li’s political authority by  

• presenting a ‘current of history’ (历史潮流) as a powerful and uncontrollable force which will inevitably draw Taiwan towards its Chinese ‘motherland’, and by
• depicting Li as a pathetic, weak and isolated human who is greatly overestimating his own power but will soon be helplessly swept aside by these mighty currents.

The water-related expressions are, loosely translated:
逆...潮流 ‘to go against the current’
逆向漩涡 ‘to go against [the direction of] a vortex, or a whirlpool’
潮流滚滚 ‘a rolling current’

The main semantic differences between water as is used in Laozi, and as is used in the contemporary news text are, in brief:

= for Laozi, water is an entirely positive force imbued with the Dao, simultaneously all-powerful and inherently yielding, and therefore an appropriate model for humans on the Daoist ‘way’;
= the news text portrays water as a force which is not controllable by and immensely destructive to those humans who work against its ‘natural’ current. 

Both have in common the notion of water as immensely powerful, and that this power relates directly to human values and endeavours (with most instances of the water metaphor throughout history).

This was a brief introduction to water in Chinese cultural thought. I will add further relevant aspects in time.


* References:
Fairbank, J. K. and M. Goldman. 2006. China: A New History. Cambridge: Harvard University Press, p. 17.
Goulde, J. 1999. Water in Classical Chinese Religion: Taoist Alchemy. Honors Seminar Material. Online. Accessed on 8 May 2011
Wikipedia. 2011. 1931 China Floods. Online. Accessed on 8 May 2011, available at http://en.wikipedia.org/1931_China_floods.htm
Wengu - Chinese Classics. Dao De Jing. Tr. A. Waley, 1931. Online. Accessed on 8 May 2011, available at http://wengu.tartarie.com/wg/wengu.php?l=Daodejing&no=0

Carr, Michael. 1993. ‘Tiao-Fish through Chinese Dictionaries’. In Sino-Platonic Papers. Online. Accessed on 13 ‎April ‎2012, available at sino-platonic.org/complete/spp040_chinese_lexicography.pdf

The text example cited above is from:
Cheng, Xiaojing. 2009. Chinese Metaphors in Political Discourse: How the Government of the People’s Republic of China Criticizes the Independence of Taiwan. PhD Thesis. Online. Accessed on 06 March 2011, available at http://cardinalscholar.bsu.edu/771/1/Xcheng_2009-3_BODY.pdf