WHAT NIU MEANS TODAY:
IT’S FANTASTIC

A Chinese folk adage goes that “blow the cattle and pat the horse”, which means brag and tout. But it’s hard to tell the origin of that Chinese adage.

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Gu Jiegang, a renowned Chinese scholar once investigated the issue in his Chuiniu, Paima (Blow the Cattle, Pat the Horse). According to Gu, what people blow is actually the cattlehide raft. A laborer on the riverside of the Yellow River would say to anyone who is bragging, “Get away to the riverside.” The unfinished sentence means to tell the bragger to brag to the river. And “pat the horse” originates from the nomadic life in the grassland. When two friends meet, they would pat the crupper of the horse of each other’s, saying “What a good horse!” It’s the way the friends say hello to each other. But we can’t know whether this anecdote is accurate.

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The Chinese character “niu” is used to express people’s admiration for something or someone that is fantastic. Beijingers would say to someone they despised, “You are a rotter.” But English-speakers may say, “You are really something.” It’s right of the opposite meaning to Chinese. But Chinese hardly blow their own trumpet.

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It is a culture to brag and tout and deserves more research. Herodotus found bragging and touting was something rooted in autocracy, as seen in his History (II.80). An illustration in Dushu magazine of June 2019 was captioned with:

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Do you wish people to think well of you? Don’t speak well of yourself. —Blaise Pascal

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​According to psychologists, bragging does good to people. One could back himself up. It’s no difference to blowing a cattlehide raft: You can’t rely on an underblown raft to sail across the Yellow River.

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