It's loquat season again. Have you tried them yet? Let's take a look at a scientific mystery caused by loquat...

Author: Liu Su (Shanghai Chenshan Botanical Garden)

The article comes from the Science Academy (ID: kexuedayuan)

Every May in the Gregorian calendar, loquats are available in the Jiangnan region. I am from the north and never had loquats when I was a child. When I ate them again as an adult, to be honest, I thought they were just so-so. Although they were somewhat cool and sweet, you had to peel them and spit out the huge pits. The flesh was only a relatively thin layer, and the inner side was hard and uncomfortable. However, tasting this southern delicacy during the short period when loquats are available is indeed a very seasonal and interesting experience.

Loquat flowers (Photo source: China Plant Image Library, author Song Ding)

Unripe loquat fruit (Photo source: China Plant Image Library, author Xu Yechun)

Mistaking loquat for pipa made ancient people laugh

Speaking of the name of loquat, there are two ancient jokes that must be mentioned. In the late Ming Dynasty, there was a "Master of Fubaizhai" who compiled a collection of jokes called "Yaxue". It was recorded that a man named Mo Tinghan went to visit the home of the famous scholar Yuan Lushan. He happened to meet a countryman offering loquats, but on the offering list, loquat was mistakenly written as the name of the musical instrument "pipa", and the two laughed. At this time, another county magistrate (said to be Qingpu Magistrate Tu Long) came to visit. Seeing the two smiling faces, he asked what was going on. Yuan Lushan told him what had just happened. The county magistrate then chanted two lines of doggerel: "Pipa is not this loquat, just because of poor literacy back then." Mo Tinghan immediately followed up: "If the pipa can bear fruit, all the flutes and pipes in the city will bloom." The county magistrate repeatedly appreciated and praised Mo Tinghan's quick wit, and thus became friends with him.

Chu Renhuo, a writer in the early Qing Dynasty, also wrote in "Jianhu Shouji": Someone gave Ming Dynasty painter Shen Zhou a box of gifts, and the outside of the box was written with "Pipa". Shen Zhou opened it and saw that it was loquat, so he joked in his thank-you letter: "Thank you for the Pipa. I opened the box and looked at it. It was silent but delicious. I know that Sima shed tears on the bank of the river and Ming Fei wrote complaints on the frontier, all for the sake of a bite." Translated into modern Chinese, it means: "Thank you for giving me the 'Pipa'. I opened the box and saw that it was silent but delicious. Bai Juyi cried for the Pipa when he was demoted to Sima of Jiangzhou. Wang Zhaojun used the Pipa to express her resentment after marrying far away in the northern frontier. It turns out that they all wanted to have a bite."

Loquat and pipa have the same pronunciation, which one came first?

Loquat and Pipa are two words that are exactly the same in pronunciation (if we don't count some individual dialects like Shanghainese). They also have similarities in their character shapes, both using "bi" and "ba" as phonetic symbols, which naturally makes people wonder whether they are related by the same origin.

The traditional view in the field of herbal medicine is that the name "pipa" came first, and the name "loquat" came later because the leaves were shaped like a pipa. If we put the pipa and loquat leaves together, we can see that they have similar shapes, so this view seems to make sense. However, if we examine it carefully, we will find that this is not the case.

The shape of loquat leaves is slightly similar to that of today's pipa (made based on pictures from the Internet)

In the classics handed down from generation to generation, "loquat" appeared earlier than "pipa". Sima Xiangru, a poet of the Western Han Dynasty, wrote "loquat persimmon" in his "Shanglin Fu", which is the earliest record of loquat as a plant name. According to research, "Shanglin Fu" was finalized in the first year of Yuanguang of Emperor Wu of the Han Dynasty (134 BC), when Zhang Qian had just started to explore the Western Regions. It was not until the Eastern Han Dynasty that the earliest record of the musical instrument pipa appeared in "Shi Ming" written by Liu Xi. However, this work did not use the word "pipa" but the word "loquat" with the character "木" next to it: "Loquat originally came from the Hu people and was played on horseback. When you push your hand forward it is called loquat, and when you pull your hand back it is called 杷. It resembles the time when you play the game, so this is the name." From this we can see that the plant name loquat did not come from the name of the musical instrument pipa. Instead, the name "loquat" was borrowed from the name of the musical instrument pipa at the beginning, and later the word "pipa" was created specifically for it.

Is the shape of the pipa similar to a loquat leaf?

So, it is not that the loquat got its name because its leaves resemble the pipa, but that the pipa got its name because its shape resembles the loquat leaves? The fact is still not so. The music historians have done a very detailed research on the history of the pipa, and found that "pipa" is actually a general term for ancient Chinese vertical plucked string instruments, which can be divided into three categories: Qin pipa, Han pipa and curved-neck pipa. The Qin pipa was originally called "stringed diao", and diao (táo) is a rattle. Stringed diao is a simple instrument made by tying strings on a body similar to a rattle. It is the predecessor of the later sanxian. It was only after the appearance of the Han pipa that people also gave it the name "pipa".

There are two theories about the origin of the Han Pipa. The above-quoted "Explanation of Names" by Liu Xi of the Eastern Han Dynasty is one of them, which believes that it was a musical instrument introduced from "Huzhong" (Western Regions). Liu Xi also believed that the reason why this instrument was called "loquat" was because its two main playing techniques were called "loquat" and "loquat".

Another theory is found in the Preface to the Fu of Pipa by the Wei and Jin Dynasty writer Fu Xuan: "The Han Dynasty sent a Wusun princess to marry Kunmi. Thinking of her longing for her while traveling, the Han Dynasty ordered craftsmen and connoisseurs of music to make qin, zheng, zhu, konghou and other instruments for music on horseback. It was named "pipa" in the local dialect, because it could be easily spread to foreign countries." This means that in the sixth year of Yuanfeng in the Western Han Dynasty (105 BC), Emperor Wu of the Han Dynasty made his niece's great-granddaughter Liu Xijun a princess and married her to the king of the Wusun Kingdom in the Western Regions. Before she left, he asked musicians to make a new instrument suitable for playing while riding a horse based on four other instruments, including the qin and zheng. He also named this new instrument "pipa" in the "local dialect" (here referring to the language of the Western Regions), because this name made the Wusun people feel familiar.

Music historians have been arguing over which of these two statements is right. In my opinion, the most likely possibility is that Liu Xi and Fu Xuan are both half right. As Liu Xi said, the Han Pipa should be an instrument introduced from the Western Regions. It is hard to imagine that Chinese musicians could combine four instruments that are quite different from the Pipa to create a brand new instrument in such a short time. Moreover, the shape of this instrument is particularly similar to the "Barbat" (Persian barbat) in the Western Regions and even West Asia. However, as Fu Xuan said, the name "Pipa" should also be a transliteration of the Western Region language, not a combination of two playing methods.

In fact, many scholars now believe that "Pipa" is the transliteration of the word barbat; because its pronunciation happens to be similar to the existing Chinese word "loquat", people called it "loquat" from the beginning. This is just like the "neon" in "neon light" is the transliteration of the Western word neon, but "neon" also happens to be an existing Chinese word.

The Han Pipa is the predecessor of the later musical instrument Ruan (Ruanxian). Its characteristics are round disc (the resonance box is round) and straight neck (the handle above the resonance box is straight and not bent). If Wang Zhaojun really played the Pipa, then she played this Han Pipa similar to the Ruan. Obviously, this shape is nothing like the loquat leaf. It was not until the Western Jin Dynasty that another variant of the Barbat Qin was introduced from the Western Regions - the curved neck Pipa, whose resonance box is pear-shaped similar to the loquat leaf shape and the handle is curved. This is what is commonly called "Pipa" in later generations. The Pipa that Bai Juyi listened to when he was demoted was this kind.

Sanxian (descendant of Qin Pipa), Zhongruan (descendant of Han Pipa) and Pipa (curved-neck Pipa) (made according to pictures on the Internet)

Now let’s briefly summarize what we said above:

The name "loquat" was recorded as early as the early years of Emperor Wu of the Han Dynasty. Although the etymology of this name is unknown, considering that the origin of loquat is in the present-day Sichuan region, it may be speculated that it is a word of Southwestern Yi origin.

After Emperor Wu of the Han Dynasty opened up the Western Regions, the round-disc, straight-necked type of barbat was introduced from the Western Regions. The Chinese transliterated it as "loquat", taking advantage of the ready-made plant name. Later, it was written as "pipa" with a special Chinese character.

After the Western Jin Dynasty, the pear-shaped curved-neck type of Barbat was also introduced from the Western Regions, and took the name "Pipa", while the original Han Pipa was renamed "Ruan". The Materia Medica says that loquat "has leaves similar to the shape of the pipa, hence the name", but it is just a literal interpretation because the shape of the recently introduced curved-neck pipa and the loquat leaves are somewhat similar.

There is a big misunderstanding about the scientific name, loquat has become "Japanese"

Having said the relationship between loquat and pipa, the last thing I want to mention is the scientific name and English name of loquat. Loquat is native to China, but its scientific name is Eriobotrya japonica, and the specific epithet japonica means "Japanese". This is because loquat was introduced to Japan in the Tang Dynasty and became a widely cultivated plant. When Carl Peter Thunberg, a botanist and student of Linnaeus in the 18th century, went to Japan to collect plants, he also collected many plants that were native to China and cultivated in Japan, and ended up using the word "Japanese" to name it. Although this is a huge misunderstanding, we can do nothing about it now.

Loquats on the streets of Tokyo, Japan (Photo by Wang Yuan)

Influenced by its scientific name, loquat also has English names such as Japanese medlar ("Japanese European hawthorn") and even Japanese plum ("Japanese plum"), but the most commonly used name is loquat. Although this word is a transliteration of the Cantonese "Lou Ju", it superficially correctly implies its Chinese origin, but unfortunately it has made another mistake of misattribution.

It turns out that the name "Luju" also appears in Sima Xiangru's "Shanglinfu", and it is obviously not the same as loquat. Later herbalists verified that it should be kumquat. But Su Shi, a famous foodie in the Northern Song Dynasty, didn't care about that and insisted on calling loquat "Luju". He also wrote in his famous poem "Eating Lychees": "It's spring all year round at the foot of Luofu Mountain, and Luju and bayberry are fresh one after another. I can eat 300 lychees a day and I'm willing to be a Lingnan person forever." Influenced by Su Shi, people in some areas of Guangdong later got used to calling loquat Luju.

From ancient times to the present, loquat is such a plant that is constantly entangled in various confusions of names.