Our columnist Hing Chao finds evidence that mutton, rather than pork, is the Chinese meat of choice through hints that remain in the written language

As a quintessentially agricultural society, it may come as a shock that Chinese civilisation has roots in societal forms that seems to be its very antithesis – that is to say, hunting-gathering and pastoralism. But this cultural DNA is so deeply ingrained that our very vocabulary betrays this undisputable link. Consider the word “mei” “美”, meaning “beauty” in Chinese. It consists of the characters “yang” “羊” (“sheep, mutton, lamb”) and “da” “大” (“big”). This linguistic evidence suggests that to an ancient Chinese, what most symbolises beauty was a well-built, good-looking sheep.

From the perspective of southern China, where the gamey flavour of mutton is anathema to the locals’ sedentary taste, this association may be difficult to understand. But if we consider this aesthetic judgment in its proper spatial and temporal context, that is to say, northwestern China circa 1100 BC – corresponding to present-day Shanxi, where ancestors of the Zhou came from – we find a pastoral society whose survival and economy depends on the health and reproduction of its flocks, indeed, whose customs and cultural practices are so interlinked with the ovine, that a healthy sheep comes to symbolise everything that is good and beautiful.

Hing Chao studies another animal that also has a long history in China, particularly in the Canton province.

The association of Chinese civilisation with the sheep is ancient, going back to the proto-historic period. Indeed, founders of the Zhou dynasty – often regarded as the “golden age” by Confucians – were themselves a pastoral people before supplanting the Shang as masters of the Chinese plains. And in spite of Zhou empire and subsequent historians’ best efforts to disguise their humble roots, vestiges of the Zhou’s pastoral past can still be found scattered in Chinese cultural practices, artistic taste, and linguistic evidence, down to this day.

Thus preserved in the Chinese language are a significant group of words, whose origin can be traced collectively to a pastoral past. Consider the words, “shan” “善”, meaning “goodness” or “adept”; “yang” “养”, meaning to “nurture” (particularly in the sense of nurturing an animal or a young child); “yang” “洋” – “brimming” and also in the context of “haiyang” “海洋” (i.e., “sea” or “ocean”); and finally, “geng” “羹” – “soup”.

All of these are composite characters that incorporate the constitutive root-character “yang” “羊” (“sheep”). If we analyse the characters further, the complex character “养”, i.e., to “nurture”, consists of the building blocks “羊” and “食” (‘to eat’). This leaves us with little doubt that the primary animal the ancient Chinese kept as domestic animals were sheep rather than hogs, and that they drew nourishment by feeding on mutton.

Similarly, a thick soup “羹” is deliciously cooked with lamb “羔”, itself a derivative word from “羊”. The junction of the character “美” (‘beauty’) leaves one in no uncertainty as to how ancient Chinese thought the soup tasted.

Curiously, of late international attention has been brought to the fact that Chinese of the Ming period were expert sailors whose navigational skills rivaled contemporary European superhouses – Spain of Columbus and Portugal of Vasco Da Gama. But how many people are aware that despite the Great Wall and subsequent dread of open fields (translating even today to concrete pavements in public parks and a cultural abhorrence of sitting on grass), ancient Chinese were themselves, once upon a time, nomads who “invaded” China?

It is perhaps illuminating to consider that the word for ocean “洋” is semantically a derivative rather than primary character, and that its original sense of “brimming”, “overflowing” is more directly associated with a juicy bite of lamb rather than the open sea.