Abstract
Through all Chinese history birds are mentioned prominently in prose and poetry. They are seen in artwork of all dynasties depicted both in the wild and in confinement as objects of wonder to be admired and cultivated. Indeed, Birds in Literature is just such a book. The author is a famous scholar. He describes eleven types of birds, their range, behavior, and the methods of production by citing cases and stories in classic Chinese literature.
So important was the keeping of birds in Chinese culture that a book, Principal Ways To Govern The People, With Annotations, was written in the northern Wei Dynasty 386-534 A.D. It was written between 533-544 A.D. and is the most ancient book on agriculture and related topics. Some of the chapters concern the breeding of birds as a method of pacifying and constructively fulfilling the desires of the common man.
Shortly following this work, A Collection of Ancient Literature from the Tung Dynasty 618-907 A.D. was written in the form of an ancient encyclopedia with some articles on birds and their merits as an integral part of society. This list could go on forever if books were written on stone but as most of the world's ancient literature has sadly been destroyed, only the artwork and these few manuscripts survived. I dare say that 30% to 40% of all Chinese art I have viewed contains some references to birds as objects of admiration and value.
This topic has fascinated this author for over 20 years since studying history and pre-history of China as a part of a general anthropologic background. As luck would have it, in 1983 we were privileged to visit China and spend time in five major cities. We were astounded to see a beautiful gilded ornate cage filled with budgerigars in the middle of our hotel upon arriving in Canton. The varieties represented in this cage included grey wings, recessive pieds, yellow faces, opalines, and red eyes in addition to the normal varieties. These must have been present in China prior to the revolution of 1948 since China was virtually cut off from the rest of the modern world until the recent past.
In every city birds were seen repeatedly in captivity; many were carried about early in the morning, by aged and obviously retired men, in single cages made of bamboo. They were taken out for an "airing' '--probably each and every morning. It is apparent that these birds are true love objects of each of their owners. Lively discussions could be heard concerning the most minute detail of each bird and the cage that confined him. Most of the cages are very old. It has been said that some of these cages are worth a hundred times more than the birds they contain, and have been handed down through centuries of conflict and famine. They survived to the present and attest to the ultimate worth the Chinese place on their birds in a society which is now only slightly more than subsistence, and this only in the past few years.
The most recent onslaught to birds came in two forms in China. First, one of the seven plagues decreed by Chairman Mao was birds (more properly translated as sparrows). As communication and dialect are two of China's great and current problems, in the people's confusion and zeal to please their beloved Chairman, many wild birds were destroyed. It may well be inferred that those keeping birds were, at least temporarily, under scrutiny for sharing the ever-precious food with vermin-as birds were then classified.
Second, during the Cultural Revolution, pressure came to bear on all those with burgeois appetites for the decadent. Birds came into disfavor along with medicine, dentistry, fine arts and the like (pretty good company, as far as I'm concerned). But, typical of the Chinese, their traditional values survive even insane persecution.
Currently, as far as can be determined, aviculture in China is about to reach a plain which is reminiscent of the great dynasties. It lacks a single ingredient - communication. This may seem a small matter to you, but think how you learn all the critically important information about the birds you love without having to make each mistake over and over again.
Unfortunately, in China there is no organized aviculture, although I personally believe that something will be done about this in the next year, as the government sees that these people and this activity pose no harm to them and in fact it is in their best interest to promote avicultural activities. So, for now, it is the incessant reinvention of the wheel and the propagation of local folklore that greases the machinery of aviculture in China.
Personally, I have pointed this out to several officials in a position to do something about it and intuition leads me to believe action will be taken soon. Oddly, one person can make a difference even in a country of more than one billion people. There is precedence for the formation of such a general avicultural society as a national dove society now exists and may be contacted by writing Shanghai Ornamental Plants and Pets Corp., 130 Zhi Zao Ju Road, Shanghai, Peoples Republic of China. In fact, most information concerning the keeping of birds in China en be obtained there. However, letters are infuriatingly slow and frequently not forthcoming.
The Ornamental Plant and Pet Store is a focal point for bird activities in Shanghai, especially if foreigners want information of any kind. But if you want to see birds one must go to the bird market offYenan Road and you will see hundreds if not thousands of birds from the common budgie to kingfishers for sale. The booths range in size from a few birds to many. One wonders where these people get their birds as the average home is a one room cold water flat with no heat.
Communication with the bird market people is done through an interpreter. The Chinese are so interested to see someone new taking pictures and asking questions that one quickly becomes the curiosity himself. The market is one block long and is abustle with activity. One would think that these types of congregations are present in every major community in China. However, Shanghai is different. By recent accounts there are 10,000 people keeping and breeding birds in Shanghai and tens of thousands of so-called bird lovers who either have a pet bird or would if they had the means.
These bird lovers hold court early in the morning (5:30 a.m. until 8:00 a.m., or so) in the local parks to sun their birds in a somewhat ritualistic way, with the same...