Substance Abuse Among Bannermen and Banner Self-perception: An Analysis of Qing Language Primers

Special Issue: Manchu in Transregional History

Abstract

Bannermen were a core element of the Qing dynasty and guaranteed their military grip on China. Yet the original image of the hardy warrior in time gave way to that of a drinking and impoverished parasite living off the court - a picture that lingers to this day. Despite the publication of groundbreaking work on banner society published in the last few years, many aspects of banner life still need to be examined in greater depth, such as how the bannermen themselves came to terms with the new changing conditions in their lives and how they perceived themselves. The portrayal of substance abuse among bannermen in Qing language primers allows for intruiging conclusions on the life of bannermen, their self-perception above all. A translation and analysis of these hitherto neglected sources reveal that their reputation as mere language textbooks consisting of set phrases is undeserved.

旗人的药物滥用和自我认知：关于清代语言启蒙读物的分析

Yves Trachsel 正弘

苏黎世大学

摘要

旗人是清廷的中坚力量，确保了清廷对中国的军事控制。然而，旗人最初弓马娴熟的战士形象逐渐让位于一种酗酒贫穷的蛀虫形象，后者至今依然深入人心。虽然近年出版了不少研究八旗社会的奠基之作，但八旗生活的许多方面——例如旗人是如何逐步适应新的人生境况、又是如何进行自我认知的——这些问题都需要我们仔细的考量。清代语言启蒙读物中对于旗人滥用药物的描绘，为我们提供了一扇观察旗人日常生活和自我认知的有趣窗口。我们在对一直以来被忽视的蒙学读物进行翻译和分析后发现，将蒙学读物仅仅视作含有不同词汇的语言课本这一观点是非常不当的。

旗人的藥物濫用和自我認知：關於清代語言啟蒙讀物的分析

Yves Trachsel 正弘

蘇黎世大學

摘要

旗人是清廷的中堅力量，確保了清廷對中國的軍事控制。然而，旗人最初弓馬嫻熟的戰士形象逐漸讓位於一種酗酒貧窮的蛀蟲形象，後者至今依然深入人心。雖然近年出版了不少研究八旗社會的奠基之作，但八旗生活的許多方面——例如旗人是如何逐步適應新的人生境況、又是如何進行自我認知的——這些問題都需要我們仔細的考量。清代語言啟蒙讀物中對於旗人濫用藥物的描繪，為我們提供了一扇觀察旗人日常生活和自我認知的有趣窗口。我們在對一直以來被忽視的蒙學讀物進行翻譯和分析後發現，將蒙學讀物僅僅視作含有不同詞匯的語言課本這一觀點是非常不當的。

Introduction

This citation from the Heilongjiang zhigao 黑龍江志稿 (Chronicles of Heilongjiang)[2] for the late Qing about the eating and drinking habits of local bannermen (“Yinshi fengsu” 飲食風俗) is one among many sources illustrating the toll substance abuse took on their life and livelihood. The fact that this description made it into the section on eating and drinking habits illustrates that such behavior must have been a normal condition.

Bannermen[3] were members of a socio-military organization referred to as the Eight Banners (jakūn gūsa). The Jurchen chieftain Nurhaci (r. 1616-1626) had founded the Eight Banners on the model of earlier hunting groups referred to as 'arrows' (niru) and arranged the whole Jurchen population in socio-military units that could be easily organized. This was considered the decisive factor in the successful conquest of Ming China and the ensuing foundation of the Qing dynasty. The Banner system was not only the pillar of Qing rule and as such vital to its military grip on the whole of China, but it also came to be the hallmark of Manchu identity in the course of the dynasty. In time, however, the banner system was confronted with serious challenges. Indebtedness and general impoverishment among bannermen became a major issue.[4] Apart from the “occupational ban”[5] which is often cited as the main reason for this, some sources, which I will present in this paper, suggest that excessive drinking was also responsible for the financial ruin of many bannermen.

Although the last three decades have seen the publication of several outstanding works about the bannermen and their lives, such as Mark C. Elliott's The Manchu Way (2001), Pamela Kyle Crossley's Orphan Warriors (1990), and Liu Xiaomeng's 刘小萌 Qingdai Beijing qiren shehui 清代北京旗人社会 (2008), none of these works treated in depth the influence of alcohol drinking and tobacco smoking on banner life. Furthermore, none included a detailed analysis of Manchu primers as historical sources. The goal of the paper is thus to take a tentative step in this direction and establish how alcohol drinking and tobacco smoking are represented in primers and what conclusions can be drawn from this presentation regarding the social life of the bannermen and how they perceived themselves and their lives. I will tackle this task with a thorough translation[6] and analysis of a series of dialogues taken from Qing language primers, a genre that has received no structural text criticism so far and contains numerous dialogues about the aforementioned two topics.

The genre of primers[7] can be divided into relatively formal primers on the one hand, and “word snippets” (hua tiaozi 話條子) on the other. An example for the former is the Da Qing quan shu 大清全書 (The Complete Book of the Daicing Dynasty) consisting of fourteen fascicles in total, completed by the scholar Shen Qiliang 沈啟亮 (fl. 1645-1693) in the 1683. The last fascicle of this work contained an appendix named Qingwen zhinan 清文指南 (Compass of the Manchu Language), split into a discussion of the Manchu alphabet, a collection of sample sentences, a collection of language exercises, and lastly a grammar. This work also contained ten short dialogues about the daily life of the Manchu people, such as banner affiliation, family stories, table stories, etc., and can be considered the first Manchu primer.[8] Other works followed in due time, among which the Tanggū Meyen (The Hundred Chapters) and the Dehi Meyen (Forty Chapters) are the most noteworthy examples.

“Word snippets,” on the other hand, are ad-hoc collections of dialogues, often compiled by the teachers themselves.[9] These dialogues were rendered in a very colloquial and, frequently, highly entertaining style, not lacking the occasional heated argument and ensuing profanity. These works were employed on a daily basis at banner schools in order to familiarize young bannermen with the spoken Manchu language, and as a result contain dialogues based on events in the real life of the bannermen.[10] The texts were recited together with the teacher and normally one such work was studied for one school year. There can be no gainsaying that the more formal primers partially served as models for these “word snippets.” However, teachers - especially teachers at private schools - also added their own material.[11] Given the fact that the episodes in the “word snippets” mirrored the lives of the bannermen, it is to be expected that they contain more insight into the daily life of the young bannermen and banner society in general, insight that can hardly be found in official records issued by the court.

After some information about the corpus, I present essential background information on the history and usage of alcohol and tobacco by the Manchus. I then elaborate on the noteworthy characteristics of each relevant dialogue found in the primers in the two sections on alcohol and tobacco in Manchu culture. The end of each section contains a short summary of the findings in the dialogues. Lastly, I put all the findings in their respective contexts and draw conclusions.

Corpus

The corpus consists of five mostly bilingual Manchu-Chinese manuscripts, which are part of a larger collection of Manchu primers referred to as “Gesprächsbücher” (conversation books) in the catalog, and other manuscripts belonging to the Staatsbibliothek zu Berlin. These manuscripts are part of the Collection Polevoj[12] consisting of approximately 150 mostly Manchu and Mongolian manuscripts that have been digitized within the framework of an ongoing digitization of the library's collection. Information about dating and authorship is scarce in the primers. One dating in Primer 3 (Hs. or. 8440) goes back to 1858 (the 8th year of Xianfeng). Since the other primers I analyzed are to a great degree identical in content and structure, I propose that they were compiled around the same time. The other two datings in Primer 1 (Hs. or. 8399), which is a monolingual Manchu copy of the Qingwen zhiyao 清文指要, go back to the years 1847 and 1848 (27th and 28th years of Daoguang) and merely indicate the time when the students were finished reading the manuscript in class.[13] The original Qingwen zhiyao was compiled in 1809. There is also no definite way of knowing whether the bannermen in the dialogues were based in Beijing or in one of the garrisons across the country. The mention of some hutongs in other primers, however, suggests that at least some of them lived in the capital. The primers in question have been chosen mainly due to their numerous mentions of alcohol and tobacco consumption. Since they exhibit the typical characteristics of primers, they can undoubtedly be considered representative works of this genre.[14] Lastly, I believe that the primers in question, the copy of the Qingwen zhiyao being the only exception, belong to the second, ad-hoc type of primers, the “word snippets.” However, I will refer to them as “primers” throughout the paper for the sake of simplicity.

Alcohol in Manchu Culture

Alcohol has been a very popular consumable good in the native region of the Manchus for a long time due to cold winter temperatures and traditional herding lifestyles which shaped consumption patterns.[15] Alcohol served various purposes in the lives of the Manchu people, for instance as a sacrificial offering to their gods and ancestors.[16] As is well known, Manchus sometimes drank to excess, which in time prompted stern reactions from the ruling class. Nurhaci already perceived alcohol as a threat to the discipline and health of his subjects and issued an edict banning its excessive consumption. The drinking problem of bannermen, however, proved to be a constant and vexing problem for the court. An edict by the Yongzheng emperor (r. 1722-1735) treated this subject: "Among Eight Banner officers and soldiers are many who drink and drink and get so intoxicated that their appearance [permanently] changes. Taking life as a lark, they lose all their property and behave wildly and disgracefully . . . . I feel sorry and pity these people, and desire that they . . . be given a year or two to reform their ways."[17] The emperor obviously bemoaned the self-indulgent behavior of some bannermen, which failed to conform to the manly virtues[18] that the court was propagating. Drinking was by no means exclusive to bannermen, and the Chinese majority is also known to have indulged in it.[19] However, the court was preoccupied with inebriated bannermen because it was responsible for their livelihood and assisted them when they found themselves in financial predicaments.[20] As noted above, excessive drinking was often considered to have caused or exacerbated financial difficulties.

Literary works of the time, such as the Emu Tanggū Orin Sakda-i Gisun Sarkiyan (Erzählungen der 120 Alten, hereafter 120 Tales) rendered into German by Giovanny Stary, also treated the subject of drinking. In a passage from 120 Tales, one of the elders tells the story of a company leader who noticed that several hundred families were living a hard life because they spent a considerable amount of their money on alcohol.[21] He called on the people in the company to make some drastic changes and, after they paid heed to his advice, their lives improved again.[22] There is another mention in the 120 Tales[23] of the destructiveness of alcohol and its negative influence on the livelihood of people:

The pedagogical message of these episodes is all too obvious, but the ideal outcome in these short stories seems to be more fiction than reality. The diary written by the soldier Dzengšeo (1652-1712) illustrates that drinking was also perceived as a problem in the Eight Banners during military campaigns: “On the twentieth, since [people were] enjoying themselves spending money, drinking alcohol, and not wearing swords, Lieutenant-general Hife issued an order to the effect that those caught [in these malfeasances] would be punished.”[26]

Lastly, it bears mentioning that the practice of excessive drinking was closely related to Qing-dynasty teahouse culture. The local teahouses came to feature among bannermen’s favorite places of leisure[27] and they were the place-to-be for bannermen after their morning walks or bird breeding.[28] Their main habits were drinking tea in the morning, alcohol during the latter half of the day, and smoking after meals.[29] This trend of spending time in teahouses became even more serious in the late Qing when many bannermen were stripped of their posts and found themselves without any occupation.

Tobacco in Manchu Culture

In addition to suggesting that heavy drinking was common among bannermen, these language primers also suggest that banner people smoked heavily, regardless of gender or social position.[33] It is even suggested that Qing bannermen were agents for the wider dispersal of tobacco throughout other areas of China Proper after the conquest. The arrival of banner troops in Jiangnan restimulated the local tobacco industry, and by 1670, tobacco was gradually appropriated by the Chinese upper gentry as well.[34] According to the genealogist Fu Yiqiang (dates unknown), tobacco was “indispensable” for Manchu and Mongol bannermen in Sichuan, possibly because they believed it would protect them from malaria.[35] A passage from the year 1630 in the Manwen laodang or Manbun rōtō 滿文老檔 (The Old Manchu Archives) - an indispensable source for events during the pre-dynastic and early dynastic period covering the years from 1607 to 1636 - shows that the Manchus (or their predecessors, the Jurchen) knew of tobacco and most probably also smoked it, at least among the elite. In the following account, tobacco is listed as one of various exchange goods:

The use of tobacco was banned by the Ming court for the first time in 1637 and was banned repeatedly thereafter. In 1639, the Manchu court in Shenyang banned it as well. Two years later, however, Hong Taiji (r. 1636-1643) admitted that the ban could not be enforced because Manchu princes continued to smoke in private, but he admonished that archery practice must not be neglected in favor of tobacco.[37] Tobacco smoking quickly became common among all strata of society, an object of recreational consumption, so to say, which was not regarded as evil.[38] From at least the seventeenth century on, Chinese doctors were well aware of the detrimental health effects of tobacco. However, tobacco was historically regarded as good for health in China, or at least not particularly harmful.[39] Tobacco smoking was a ubiquitous phenomenon in Qing society, among both bannermen and the broader Chinese population.[40] To what extent the bannermen actually smoked more than the Chinese majority, however, is hard to evaluate.

Conclusion

The frequency of alcohol-related dialogues is an indication that drinking indeed occupied an important position in the lives of the bannermen. This comes as little surprise, considering what relevant secondary sources say on this topic. Judging from some dialogues, this was also true for very young bannermen and servants. Drinking was thus not confined to any particular social stratum or age group. In the dialogues, drinking also played a vital role in social bonding. If a bannerman did not want to drink, he was regarded as odd, and a certain amount of peer pressure was used to make him drink. At the same time, drinking is portrayed as something negative and unhealthy, and people who are known to indulge in excessive drinking are persuaded to do otherwise or shunned.

Why are these dialogues in the primers in such large numbers? Were they added to transmit a moral message? In part, yes. Their target audience undoubtedly consisted of younger bannermen who were studying Manchu with these materials, which, as mentioned, were often compiled by teachers themselves. It it thus reasonable to assume that a teacher adapted the primers to the needs of his students and - if he saw fit to do so - possibly also added some special dialogues, for instance about excessive drinking. Maybe the teacher had caught a student drinking or heard that he was drinking on a regular basis and wanted to exert a positive influence on him. In these instances, the primers functioned as a medium for the prevention of alcoholism and can be said to have conveyed a certain moral message, because in a society where alcohol drinking was ubiquitous, younger bannermen were undoubtedly exposed by friends or family to the many dangers of drinking.

However, there is more to these primers than just the quaint moral message. Primers also presented young bannermen with two extremes of banner life: stern military training on the one hand, and merry drinking sessions on the other hand. This stark contrast between sober archery talk and intoxicated bannermen neglecting their duties is striking. However, I believe that this was daily business for the young banner students. I even suggest that this at times slightly theatrical depiction can be understood as a form of self-parody, a mechanism to cope with what was an all-too-common phenomenon. At a time when a bannerman's identity was no longer shaped by military victories and when drinking was so widespread and public, why not turn something negative in something positive and laugh at oneself? The humorous undertone is mostly conveyed by the lively discussions, the very colloquial style of language, and the stereotypical depiction of the inebriated bannermen. The compilers of these primers also did not shy away from using occasional profanities to spice things up. This renders the primers much more entertaining, and I am convinced that the dialogues also were amusing to the banner students. This undoubtedly also increased their interest in the language at a time when most of them are believed to have grown up with Chinese as a first language and for whom Manchu was a second and probably bookish-seeming language. However, these stereotypical depictions of drunken bannermen are also problematic in that they trivialize alcoholism and portray it as something normal. The fact that these dialogues are entertaining only exacerbates this, just like the overused and trite moral messages. By reading these dialogues repeatedly, some of the banner students undoubtedly became numb to the dangers of drinking and possibly even internalized that drinking was an intrinsic part of banner culture. There is no gainsaying that this effect was completely at odds with the original educative function of the primers.

Instances of tobacco smoking are also frequent in the primers, albeit to a far lesser degree than drinking. Unlike alcohol, smoking is mostly portrayed as a recreational activity, and there is only one instance where a bannerman speaks out against it and ascribes the symptoms his friend is experiencing to excessive tobacco smoking. There is, however, no moral censure of tobacco smoking in the primers, and it is not portrayed as having detrimental effects on society. The court possibly considered tobacco smoking as a lesser evil compared to alcohol drinking and rampant opium smoking. Interestingly, there is no direct mention of opium smoking in any primer I have come across so far. The primers were presumably written around 1858, a time when opium smoking was a serious problem for the court. Hence the question arises why there were no examples included in the primers to warn young bannermen of its dangers. A possible explanation would be that the court did not want to emphasize the ineffectivenss of some of its measures against opium addiction. Another, less plausible, theory, is that dambagu was sometimes used as a euphemism to indirectly refer to yarsi dambagu, “opium.” However, this is mere conjecture on my part, as I have not found any textual examples for this yet.

A few final remarks on primers as historical sources are in order. Considering their well-balanced content and their various functions, they can justly be referred to as an amalgamation of different genres: textbooks, manuals, diaries, and even alcoholism prevention leaflets. Some occasional episodes are also interwoven with each other and thus resemble a short novel. This genre appears extremely adaptable, which is probably why it was so extensively used in Manchu language teaching even until after the fall of the Qing dynasty.[42] Dismissing the primers as a mere medium to promulgate virtues associated with the Manchu Way such as archery, horsemanship, or frugality would therefore sell them short and only provide an incomplete picture.

Bibliography

Notes

1. 嗜酒之外，飲饌極菲。然顓愚成性。不知計算且習於遊惰稍近勞力之役轍避不前。八旗兵丁領得月餉，每三五成群，甘飲市肆，一日未終，罄諸所有。而後已醉，則隨路倒臥，亦無人過問之. 省城酒肆極多，大率山東回民執此為業。練兵餉項半耗於此矣.

2. Zhang Boying 張伯英 and Wan Fulin 萬福麟, Heilongjiang zhigao 黑龍江志稿 (Beiping: Wenhai chubanshe, 1932), 6:664.

3. The terms bannermen and Manchu are used somewhat interchangeably in this paper. This is due to the fact that the Eight Banners exerted a profound influence on Qing society throughout the Qing period, and bannerman became one, if not the, most striking marker of identity for a Manchu. This is also clearly discernible in the primers, where being Manchu is equivalent to being a member of the Eight Banners. See Mark C. Elliott, The Manchu Way: The Eight Banners and Ethnic Identity in Late Imperial China (Stanford: Stanford University Press, 2001). In the dialogues analysed here, the word age is also used to refer to bannermen.

4. This problem is commonly referred to as the “Problem of the Eight Banner Livelihood” (baqi shengji wenti 八旗生計問題). Elliott, The Manchu Way, 196.

5. Bannermen were forbidden from pursuing other means livelihood other than being soldiers or officials, which made them financially dependent on the court. As a result, the strain on the imperial treasury was immense. This regulation was not lifted until 1863, and its elimination contributed little to improving most bannermen's finances. In the last few decades of the dynasty, bannermen had acquired a bad reputation for merely living off the pensions and grain provided by the court. By that time, the economically deflated but egotistically inflated bannermen had already become a stock character of popular literature. See Pamela Kyle Crossley, Orphan Warriors: Three Manchu Generations and the End of the Qing World (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1990), 176.

6. In cases where a too literate translation would have impeded comprehension, I have opted for a freer rendering into English.

7. For a more detailed and well-structured introduction into the history of this genre please refer to: Tatjana A. Pang, Schriftliche mandschurische Quellen zur Geschichte und Kultur des Qing-Reiches des 17. und 18. Jahrhunderts (Wiesbaden: Harrassowitz Verlag, 2015), 124-36.

8. Pang, Mandschurische Quellen, 129.

9. Aixin Jueluo Yingsheng 爱新觉罗瀛生, “Tantan Qingdai de Manyu jiaoxue” 谈谈清代的满语教学, Minzu yanjiu 满族研究 1990.3: 45.

10. Aixin Jueluo, “Tantan Qingdai de Manyu jiaoxue,” 45.

11. Aixin Jueluo, “Tantan Qingdai de Manyu jiaoxue,” 45.

12. For the complete collection, please refer to Hartmut Walravens, Chinesische und mandjurische Handschriften und seltene Drucke (Stuttgart: Franz Steiner Verlag, 2009). The digitized manuscripts are available in the online catalogue of the Staatsbibliothek zu Berlin https://digital.staatsbibliothek-berlin.de/.

13. Doro Eldengge i juwan nadaci aniya omšon biya de hūlame wajiha and Doro Eldengge i juwan jakūci aniya biyai juwan duin de hūlame wajiha.

14. I am currently preparing an integral translation and critical edition of all the primers in the Staatsbibliothek zu Berlin, forthcoming in early 2019 (Manchu Foundation Publishing). This project enables me to examine an increased quantity of primers, a task which I was not able to fulfill in the paper at hand given the limited space.

15. Norman Smith, Intoxicating Manchuria: Alcohol, Opium, and Culture in China's Northeast (Vancouver: UBC Press, 2012), 23.

16. Chen Jianwei 陈见微, “Qingdai Dongbei minjian de jiu wenhua” 清代东北民间的酒文化, Jilin shifan xueyuan xuebao 吉林师范学院学报 1996.1: 19.

17. Yongzheng Emperor 雍正, "Shizongxian huangdi shangyu baqi" 世宗憲皇帝上諭八旗, last accessed March 10, 2018, https://ctext.org/wiki.pl?if=gb&chapter=899596&searchu=%E9%85%92

    上諭比見八旗官員兵丁内嗜酒沈湎以致面貌改常輕生破産肆行妄為者甚衆其中豈乏才具可用之人朕實憫之惜之 [...] 酗酒不肖之徒給限一年或二年令其悛改.

18. This policy is commonly referred to as the Manchu Way (guoyu qishe 國語騎射) which the court vigorously promoted in the eighteenth century and to a lesser extent later on. Elliott, The Manchu Way, 8.

19. The existence of sects among the Han population which prided themselves on their abstention from meat, tobacco, and alcohol clearly shows that drinking and smoking lacking in moderation was also widespread among the Chinese population. The Jindan sect, for instance, was well-established in China and enjoyed a wide following in Rehe. Also the Zaili sect, which flourished in Zhili, celebrated abstention from opium, alcohol, and tobacco. Cecily McCaffrey, "From Chaos to a New Order: Rebellion and Ethnic Regulation in Late Qing Inner Mongolia," Modern China 37.5 (September 2011): 538.

    Gina Hames writes that Buddhism played a crucial role across Chinese history in curbing excessive drinking that had been a problem in the pre-Buddhist period. Alcohol in World History (London: Routledge, 2012), 29-30.

    Though this may have been true for a certain time, Susan Naquin and Evelyn S. Rawski write that alcohol had become a part of the diet of most people in China by the eighteenth century. Chinese Society in the Eighteenth Century (New Haven: Yale University Press, 1987), 74.

20. Elliott, The Manchu Way, 193.

21. Giovanni Stary, Emu Tanggū Orin Sakda-i Gisun Sarkiyan - Erzählungen der 120 Alten (Wiesbaden: Harrassowitz Verlag, 1983), 95-96.

22. Stary, Sakda, 96-97.

23. Stary, Sakda, 116-17.

24. A measure of volume equaling ten lesser pecks, a bushel. Jerry Norman, A Comprehensive Manchu-English Dictionary (Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard University Asia Center, 2013), 183.

25. Ehe gusherakū baita yooni arki ci deribumbi kai. Sarkū niyalma damu arki burara de giyanakū udu jeku baibumbi sembi. Te bici fu, ting, jeo, hiyan-i ba amba ajige adali akū, bisire arki burara puseli absi akū ilan duin ci juwan udu orin udu gūsin dehi funceme bisirengge gemu bi. Huhu hoton-i uhei saraci-i kadalaha emu ting ni harangga teile arki burara puseli uthai ilan tanggū funceme bi. Puseli tome inenggidari komso ocibe, duin sunja hule ci wesihun, juwan udu hule ci fusihūn jeku be baitalame arki burambi, emu amba hule-i jeku heo seme duin tanggū niyalmai emu inenggi ergen hetumbure de tesumbi.

26. Nicola Di Cosmo, The Diary of a Manchu Soldier in Seventeenth-Century China: My Service in the Army, by Dzengšeo (London: Routledge, 2006), 92.

    Orin de gūsai ejen hife. jiha eifire. arki nure omire. loho asharakū oci. nambuha be tuwame weile arambi seme fafulaha.

27. Liu Xiaomeng, Qingdai Beijing qiren shehui (Beijing: Zhongguo shehui kexue chubanshe, 2008), 642.

28. For more insight into the daily leisure of the bannermen, see Lao She 老舍 (1899-1966), Zheng hongqi xia 正紅旗下 (Tianjin: Tianjin renmin chubanshe, 2017).

29. Liu, Qiren, 642.

30. The correlation between coughing and alcohol intake is less well established in the West than in China, where even ordinary people have a basic grasp of traditional Chinese medicine and know that alcohol can increase inner body heat and therefore also cause coughing. The standard work on herbology in Chinese medicine, the Bencao gangmu 本草纲目 provides the following information for 米酒 (nure): [气味] 苦、甘、辛、大热、有毒. Li Shizhen 李时珍, Bencao gangmu (Beijing: Renin weisheng chubanshe, 1982), 1558.

31. The “there” (casi) is not explained in more detail, however I suggest that a teahouse or any other drinking establishment is being referred to.

32. Lü Ping 吕萍 points out that although liquor gained popularity among the Manchus after the reign of the Kangxi emperor, they still preferred using rice wine for sacrificial purposes. Lü Ping, “Manzu saman jisi yu jiu” 满族萨满祭祀与酒, Minzu yanjiu 2007.1: 103.

33. Lucie Olivova, "Tobacco Smoking in Qing China," Asia Major, 3d ser., 18.1 (2005): 227.

34. Carol Benedict, Golden-Silk Smoke: A History of Tobacco in China, 1550-2010 (Berkeley: University of California Press, 2011), 25.

35. Benedict, Golden-Silk Smoke, 24.

36. Manbun rōtō 滿文老檔, ed. Kanda Nobuo 神田信夫 et al. (Tokyo: Tōyō bunko, 1955), vol. 2, 32:437.

    Jorgon biyai juwan de, pi doo tun de lio uge de elcin genehe batun baksi isinjiha, han de unggihengge, cai emu tanggū gin, fun sunja gin, ulme sunja minggan, moo ihan i weihe juwe tanggū juru, ancun, sirge, tonggo juwe tanggū ninju hiyase, ši qing juwan yan, batun baksi de gūsin yan menggun, suje duin, emu elbihe jibca, emu beri, dambagu susai kiyan, u iogi de emu suje buhe.

37. Alan Baumler, The Chinese and Opium under the Republic: Worse than Floods and Wild Beasts (Albany: State University of New York Press, 2007), 17.

38. Olivova, "Tobacco," 248.

39. Benedict, Golden-Silk Smoke, 252.

40. Benedict, Golden-Silk Smoke, 108.

41. This advice fits Chinese medical theory. Inner heat is one of the six pathological factors according to Chinese medicine: Yin Huihe 印会河, Zhongyi jichu lilun 中医基础理论 (Shanghai: Shanghai kexue jishu chubanshe, 2007), 93.

    Tobacco, alcohol, and some kinds of meat are believed to increase inner body heat, which in time can lead to inflammation-related symptoms such as blisters, rashes, pimples, nervousness, anxiety, cracked lips, and the like: Harriet Beinfield and Efrem Korngold, Traditionelle Chinesische Medizin: Grundlagen, Typenlehre, Therapie (München: Deutscher Taschenbuch Verlag, 2009), 91-92.

42. Aixin Jueluo, “Tantang Qingdai de Manyu jiaoxue,” 43-44.