IIIF Color HighRes
National Institute of Informatics - Digital Silk Road Project
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| IIIF Color HighRes |
| Sino-Iranica : vol.1 |
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Citation Information
THE GRAPE-VINE 229
In Han-6ou yellow and bright white grapes were styled lu-tse A ("beads, pearls"); another kind, styled "rock-crystal" (wi-tsin), excelled in sweetness; those of purple and agate color ripened at a little later date.'
To Turkistan a special variety is attributed under the name so-so
fA grape, as large as wu-wei-tse H 3- ("five flavors," Schizandra
chinensis) and without kernels fitt A. A lengthy dissertation on this fruit is inserted in the Pen ts`ao kan mu .si i.2 The essential points are the following. It is produced in Turfan and traded to Peking; in appearance it is like a pepper-corn, and represents a distinct variety of grape.
Its color is purple. According to the Wu tsa tsu 31 , written in
161o, when eaten by infants, it is capable of neutralizing the poison of small-pox. The name so-so is not the reproduction of a foreign word, but simply means "small." This is expressly stated in the Pen kin fun
yuan g, which says that the so-so grapes resemble ordinary
grapes, but are smaller and finer, and hence are so called ( i 4411
The Pi 'e'en of Yû-wen Tin 3 annotates, however,
that so-so is an error for sa-so I& , without giving reasons for this opinion. Sa-so was the name of a palace of the Han emperors, and this substitution is surely fantastic. Whether so-so really is a vine-grape seems doubtful. It is said that so-so are planted everywhere in China to be dried and marketed, being called in Kian-nan fan p`u-t`ao ("foreign
grape ") .3
The Emperor K `an-hi (1662-1722), who knew very well that grapes had come to China from the west, tells that he caused three new varieties to be introduced into his country from Hami and adjoining territories,— one red or greenish, and long like mare-nipples; one not very large, but of agreeable taste and aroma; and another not larger than a pea, the most delicate, aromatic, and sweetest kind. These three varieties of grape degenerate in the southern provinces, where they lose their aroma. They persist fairly well in the north, provided they are planted in a dry and stony soil. "I would procure for my subjects," the Emperor concludes, "a novel kind of fruit or grain, rather than build a hundred porcelain kilns.i4
Turkistan is well known to the Chinese as producing many varieties
1 Mon Tian lu a, by Wu:Tse-mu n v( of the Sung (Ch. 18, p. 5 b;
ed. of Z`i pu tsu tai ts`un su).
2 Ch. 7, p. 69. This valuable supplement to the Pen ts`ao kan mu was first published in 165o (reprinted 1765 and appended to several modern editions of the
Pen ts'ao) by Cao Hio-min fifiC (hao u-hien 3 ) of Han-éou.
3 Mun ts`üan tsa yen g g a, cited in ru su tsi c'en, XX, Ch. 130.
4 Mémoires concernant les Chinois, Vol. IV, 1779, pp. 471-472.
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