Ordinary and commonplace, vegetables would hardly seem to compare in appeal as artistic forms with flowers or plants such as the "three friends of the cold of the year" (pine, bamboo, and plum) or the "four gentlemen" (plum blossoms, orchids, bamboo, and chrysanthemums), which are pleasing to the eye and rich in personality; but in fact, vegetables can help us to understand what is meant by the maxim of "seeing the extraordinary in the ordinary."

Let's talk a bit about the meaning and purport of vegetables. First, they're considered a low-grade food. The Chinese word for vegetable has negative connotations in modern slang: ts'ai(vegetable) or ts'ai-niao(vegetable bird) describes a person who is stupid or boorish. In ancient times vegetables were never used as offerings in worship, since the Li-chi, or Classic of Rites, stated, "vegetables are not fit for sacrificial offerings," and they are rarely used even today. Vegetables represent the crude and plain. The Analects says of Confucius, "Even if it were only coarse rice and vegetable soup, he would make his offerings solemnly," meaning that offerings must be made sincerely even if they are meager.

Second, vegetables in Chinese represent hunger: when a person's face is described as "vegetable color," it means he looks famished or emaciated. The Shih-chi, or Records of the Grand Historian, says, "Confucius had a vegetable (that is, emaciated) look in Chen and Tsai," to describe the extremity of his situation there. For the same reason, the phrase "the people have a vegetable look" served as an admonition to rulers. The most famous example is the inscription to a painting of vegetables by Huang Shan-ku of the Sung dynasty (960 to 1279): "Officials and scholars must not be unacquainted with their flavor; the common people of the empire must not be made to have their look." The picture thus conveys a social and ethical message, as do many other traditional Chinese paintings.

Third, vegetables represent frugality and freedom from worldly desires. In The Analects Confucius says, "In eating coarse rice, drinking water, and using an elbow for a pillow, joy is to be found. Wealth and rank attained through immoral means have as little to do with me as floating clouds." At a time when eating meat was a perquisite of the rich, vegetables stood for "being contented in poverty and rejoicing in the Way." The Ts'ai-ken t'an, or Vegetable Root Talks, by Hung Tzu-ch'eng of the Ming dynasty (1368 to 1644), which is still a popular self-improvement book for young people, uses vegetables to illustrate moral lessons.

Fourth, vegetables represent the bucolic life of the countryside--rural life not in its aspects of poverty or hardship but as part of a vision of natural harmony that was often pursued by Chinese scholars. Ancient scholars often used the vegetable farm to represent a place of freedom from the cares of the world, which they could hope to attain if fate willed.

Times have changed. In today's prosperous society, vegetables vie favorably in status with meat. Potato porridge, for "example, which just thirty years ago was still a token of poverty and want, is now a late-night treat in fancy restaurants. At a time when people's diets are too rich in calories, vegetables have become an important element in maintaining good health. "Eat more vegetables" is an often-heard phrase today, an injunction much different in import from the admonitions of a political nature for which vegetables were once used in times past.

Besides paintings, vegetables often appear as artistic subjects in carvings in jade or other materials. The "blue flower" trays common in homes on Taiwan several decades ago were often decorated with a picture of water convolvulus. The pictures are crude in style, but their rich country flavor gives them a feeling of warmth and intimacy. Water convolvulus in Taiwanese is called ying, which is similar in sound to the word for eternal, so its picture on a tray represents a wish for long life.

[Picture Caption]

Sketched from Life, by Fa Ch'ang of the Sung dynasty (960 to 1127).

A Vegetable, by Shen Chou of the Ming dynasty (1368 to 1644).

Attaching cassette or video tapes has already become the new tide in chi ldren's publications.

The production for children's reading materials is more careful than in the past. The vehicles for expression are more animated.