On November 1, local time, Foreign Ministry spokesman Geng Shuang said a Chinese proverb at the Disarmament and International Security Committee (the first committee of the UN General Assembly) at the 76th session of the United Nations General Assembly, called "three things are not enough", hoping that we hope that individual countries will understand this truth and stop creating confrontation and self-deprecation next year.
You know, the Foreign Ministry spokesperson is very cautious in quoting the scriptures, so is there anything exquisite about Geng Shuang's quotation of the folk saying "three things are not three" here?
It's nature. The idiom "nothing but three" comes from the twenty-seventh time of "Journey to the West", one of the four famous works in China, that is, the bridge section of "three dozen white bone essences" that everyone is familiar with. In order to protect Tang Monk from being harmed by the White Bone Essence, Sun Wukong saw through the changes of the White Bone Essence three times and killed him, but was wrongly blamed by the Tang Monk, plus the Eight Precepts of the Pig were next to him to "slander and cold words", and Tang Monk was already the third time to drive Goku away.
Goku was sad, but he had the following sentence: "As the saying goes, 'There are only three things.'" If I don't go, I'm a vulgar and shameless person. So he returned to Huaguoshan and continued his happy life.
Now let's talk about Geng Shuang's speech, here we use the saying "nothing but three", in addition to the self-metaphor of Sun Wukong, a well-known hero in China, but also a metaphor for other countries like The Tang monks are as ignorant, as treacherous and lazy as the Eight Precepts, "really a vulgar and shameless person."
Some friends may be more true, the idiom "nothing but three", is it "too three", or "not three"? In other words, whether you can only make two mistakes, or you can make three mistakes.
In fact, as an idiom, the word "three" here should be an imaginary number, representing a lot. Because in traditional Chinese culture, "three" is the largest number.
Chapter 42 of the Tao Te Ching says that the Tao gives birth to one, two to two, two to three, and three to all things.
The Sayings explains: "Third, the way of heaven and earth and man is also. Count from three. "Heaven and earth are three, then "three" has become a collective term for man and nature.
In Chinese culture, "three" is given the highest, largest, and broadest meaning, representing the supreme, the supreme, and the supreme.
In addition, the "three" also often represents the meaning of stability, solidity and harmony. The triangle is the most stable figure, and the ding, which is regarded as a symbol of the country, the state and power, is also "three-legged standing".
Therefore, in Chinese culture, most of the "three" characters are virtual references, not real three or three pieces.