Mi refers to rice longevity, and tea refers to tea longevity. According to traditional Chinese saying, the shape of the character rice can be seen as eighty-eight at a glance, so the longevity of rice is 88 years; and the shape of the character tea is exactly like rice The prefix "草" is added to the character, and it can be inferred that the age of 108 is reached by adding "twenty".
At first glance, this statement seems to be for longevity. "Tea" is at the spiritual and cultural level. Therefore, from "rice longevity" to "tea longevity" should also imply the meaning of "climbing the spiritual peak again" . Rice longevity is eighty-eight years, and tea longevity is one hundred and eight years, which means that it is more than eighty-eight years old, and the expectation is one hundred and eight years. ?
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Mr. Wu Shijing, a famous scholar and professor at Beijing Normal University, once made such a statement when his mother-in-law was 88 years old. Deputy birthday couplet:
Congratulations on rice today; congratulations on tea tomorrow.
Isn’t it too stingy to just give some rice and tea to your mother-in-law on her birthday? Many people were confused. It was Mr. Wu himself who came out to explain: This "meter" is not rice, but refers to "meter longevity". "meter" can be broken down into "eighty-eight", and "meter longevity" means eighty-eight years.
This "tea" is not tea, it refers to "tea longevity". The word "tea" is composed of "twenty" and "eighty-eight", the total is one hundred and eight, and "tea longevity" is To live to be over 100 years old. Mr. Wu's birthday couplet has an auspicious meaning and is full of fun.
In 1983, two philosophers, Feng Youlan and Jin Yuelin, were both 88 years old. These two close friends both made "rice birthdays" on their birthdays. Mr. Feng Youlan wrote a couplet to celebrate his birthday and gave it to Jin Yuelin. The couplet said:
It’s more than just rice, and we look forward to each other with tea; when it comes to high white horses, Tao surpasses green oxen.
The meaning of the first couplet is: not only to live to the "rice longevity", but also to live to the "tea longevity". The second couplet says that Jin Yuelin's argumentation is comparable to the "white horse is not a horse" by the philosopher Gongsun Long during the Warring States Period. In terms of argumentation, he surpasses the ancestor of Taoism, Lao Tzu, who rides a green ox. This is certainly a high praise for Jin Yuelin’s philosophical qualities.
Baidu Encyclopedia - More than just rice, life is about tea
Baidu Encyclopedia - Tea Life