Recently, the terms "Southern Little Potato" and "Guangxi Little Sugar Orange" have become more controversial. The reason is that a group of tourists from the south flocked to Harbin. Due to their inherent impression of the south, the southern tourists were nicknamed "little potatoes".
As for "Guangxi Little Sugar Orange", it represents more than ten primary school students from Nanning who came to the Northeast to visit. China has a vast land and rich resources, and it is normal for southern tourists to travel to the north, but these two nicknames have caused many netizens to quarrel.
Some people feel that these two nicknames are obviously derogatory. Even if they are not malicious, they are discriminatory and will incite confrontation between the north and the south and between men and women.
Some people think that "little potatoes and sugar oranges" are just nicknames given by friends from the north to tourists from the south, and there is no need to go online.
In fact, both "personification of nouns" and "personification of people" have a long history in our country.
The bad phenomenon of "regional discrimination" has existed since ancient times. In the writings of pre-Qin scholars, there have been many people who ridiculed people from a certain region.
What is interesting is that from the Spring and Autumn Period to the end of the Warring States Period, many literati's notes or pre-Qin fables mentioned silly and ridiculous things, mostly referring to "Song people".
"Song people" refers to the people of the Song Dynasty, a vassal state located near Shangqiu, Henan today. When King Wu of Zhou divided the world, Song State was close to the residence of King Zhou, so those who were near the water and towers got the moon first, becoming a veritable "big country".
From the end of the Spring and Autumn Period to the Warring States Period, the Song Dynasty became the target of "blackmail". The familiar idiom of pushing back the growth of the country and waiting for the failure happened all happened in the Song Dynasty.
Not only that, the works of Meng, Zhuang, Han, and Lu all compared Song people to "fools".
For example, "Zhuangzi" says: People in the Song Dynasty were good at making clothes and hats, and they took the finished products to the country of Yue for sale. As a result, the Yue people did not grow their hair long and were bare-chested all year round. The clothes and hats they made would definitely not be sold.
In "Han Feizi", a man from Song Dynasty did not listen to his neighbor's advice and his home was robbed while repairing the wall. Instead, he suspected that the thief was the neighbor who kindly gave him advice.
In addition to the Song State, the Zheng State is also often "hacked". The stories of "Zheng people buy shoes" and "buy coffins for pearls" happened in Zheng State.
Of course, there are also jokes that belittle the people of Chu and Qi, but they are not many.
More than 2,000 years ago, Mencius called the Chu people "people with scorpion-tongued southern barbarians", and southerners often called northerners "beaters". This should be the earliest "personification of nouns."
The earliest "objectification of people" should be in the Wei and Jin Dynasties. Northerners called southerners "raccoon dogs". There is an idiom called "a raccoon dog on the same hill". The raccoon dog is an ancient canine native to China. It is relatively fat and slightly smaller than a wolfdog. It is now extinct.
New note "Shishuo Xinyu" : "After the Wei and Jin Dynasties, the northerners took the lead in calling the Wu people raccoon dogs."
There is also a short story in it. Sun Xiu, the royal family of the Wu Kingdom, surrendered to the Western Jin Dynasty, and Jin Wu Emperor Sima Yan was kind to him. He loved her so much that she even married her sister-in-law Kuai to Sun Xiu.
Once the couple had a quarrel, and Kuai called Sun Xiu a "raccoon dog". After Emperor Wu of Jin made peace, the two reconciled. At least at that time, many upper-class nobles, including northern gentry, despised southerners.
Even if it was a fight between husband and wife, the word "raccoon dog" still broke Sun Xiu's heart.
"Book of Jin" also contains records about using raccoons to curse people. During the "Eight Kings Rebellion", Lu Ji was appointed governor of Hebei by Sima Ying, king of Chengdu, and led troops to attack Sima Yi, king of Changsha.
Meng Chao was deeply trusted by Sima Ying. He led an army of 10,000 people to prepare to invade Changsha. Before they could enter the battlefield, Meng Chao's men robbed the people. Lu Ji captured the mastermind, and Meng Chao actually led more than a hundred cavalry, broke into Lu Ji's tent, and took away the captured subordinates.
Lu Ji's face turned red and white, and he cursed the other person: "You are a raccoon dog slave, are you worthy of being the governor?"
The above precedents can prove that more than 2,000 years ago, the ancients had already begun to discriminate against each other, and appeared The phenomenon of "personification of nouns" and "objectification of people" was discovered.
Today, more than 2,000 years later, when a large group of southern tourists traveled to the Northeast, they were given nicknames such as "Little Potatoes" and "Sugar Oranges", which caused many people to criticize them.
Many netizens believe that the so-called "little potatoes" and "sugar oranges" of provide a kind of wrong visual information. In layman's terms, these two nicknames look very "cute", but they allude to the height of the people from the South. If
continues to be on the line, it will also lead to the idea that southern tourists spend money to humiliate northerners.
Let’s not discuss whether this argument is right or wrong. When the COVID-19 epidemic first broke out at the end of 2019, two temporary hospitals in Wuhan were completed and put into use in a short period of time.
The construction process of the two hospitals was completely broadcast live simultaneously. Many netizens named the excavators and soil mixers on the construction site "Yunijiang" and "Bai Juyi".
even used "hot dry noodles" to replace the city of Wuhan as its abbreviation. Isn't this "noun personification"?
So why didn’t people react strongly to these nicknames at the time? The fundamental reason is that when the new coronavirus outbreak broke out, Wuhan became the hardest hit area, and people across the country became united and wanted to provide help to the disaster area.
When we saw that the temporary hospital was being built so quickly, everyone started cheering for Wuhan by "picking nicknames." This can be said to be a subculture derived from the younger generation, and has nothing to do with derogatory terms such as insults and discrimination.
Nowadays, many tourists from the south travel to the Northeast. Not only can they relax after busy work, but they also drive tourism revenue in the Northeast. This is simply a good thing.
Judging from the reactions of the "Northeast veterans" in the past two days, we can see that they welcome these southern tourists from the bottom of their hearts. Calling out "little potatoes" and "sugar oranges" is definitely not meant to insult southern tourists.
Therefore, whether "personification of nouns" or "personification of people" must be combined with the context and environment at the time, as well as the attitude of the person who said these words.
The ancients had naked contempt for the Zheng and Song dynasties, and insulted their personality. They were "feudal dross", while "little potatoes" and "sugar orange" were terms of endearment.
Of course, this nickname is likely to cause misunderstandings among some people. Some southern women are reluctant to compare themselves to small potatoes, which is quite normal.
Therefore, in the process of spreading these new nicknames and subcultures, the media and relevant departments need to provide correct guidance. Don't focus too much on one point, and take into account the feelings and thoughts of most people, because many times people will do bad things with good intentions.
In fact, this kind of differential treatment based on region alone is also a kind of invisible discrimination. For whatever reason, some negative impressions were formed about other geographies.
The best thing to do is to be tolerant and understand other people, understand more general group images, and eliminate subconscious stereotypes. This not only allows for true acceptance of the new culture, but also gradually eliminates chains of social discrimination.
