[2] Remember, a dao is basically the Chinese sabre.
[3] Reminder. One li is half a kilometer roughly. Or somewhat less than a quarter of a mile.
[4] Traditional Chinese writing was written and read right to left, up to down. There is also little to no punctuation in this traditional style. Take that, Oxford comma!
[5] The Chinese calendar is a lunar calendar with twenty-eight days and twelve months (normally). Leap years see the addition of an additional month and that happens every four years. Generally, the months are roughly one to two months displaced from the Georgian calendar (so New Year’s is in January or February).
[6] Chinese equivalent of cutting your nose off to spite your face.
[7] The huki (colloquially hokou—though that’s actually the actual registration of an individual) is a system of household registration used in China. Pre-modern China had multiple variations of the registration system, ranging from a simple central registrar for the village and individual family registers to more complicated systems involving multiple households. Modern day China also has a much more complicated and political system in place for rural / city-based denizens. Obviously, we’re using a simplified version here. The hokou was used mainly for conscription and taxation in pre-modern times.
[8] The abacus (known as a suanpan in China) is a wooden / bamboo rectangle with beads on sliding wires and split into two sections by a wooden beam—a two-bead top deck and a five-bead bottom deck. Counting is done by moving the beads up and down, with each bead set demarcating a single digit, tens, hundreds, etc. Learnt right, it improves mental math and can be faster than a calculator.
[9] So, one thing to note is that depending on time period, merchants were generally considered the lowest class in society. Very broadly speaking, in traditional Confucian society, it went from noble, scholar, peasant, artisans and craftsmen, then merchants and traders.
[10] Amitoufo is the transliteration of the Sanskrit words Amithaba Buddha. It calls upon the Buddha of Infinite Light to help calm the mind and come from a compassionate place. In this case, Tien Huo is using it as a reminder to Yien Xue to let this go.
[11] Two of the Eight Immortals in Chinese mythology. Cai He supposedly traveled the world, doing good before ascending after getting drunk, while Zhong Li found a jade vessel that took him as an immortal to the heavens.
[12] Equivalent of modern day police or detectives. Sub-prefectures were appointed by prefectures who were appointed by the magistrate. They and imperial censors (who were generally restricted to chasing up corruption in the bureaucracy) were the policing forces of the government. They could be aided by city militia or army personnel, though the amount of help they received from the army varied during the time period.
[13] Traditional form of submission where the individual kneels and places their head on the ground in supplication. Often, this can be seen when worshipping ancestors and individuals of higher rank, with multiple bows indicating greater significance in rank.
[14] Pulled from the proverb about gratitude—“When drinking water, don’t forget who dug the well.”
[15] Mandarin equivalent of the f-word.
[16] This is a reference to a story about a young and old monk. It basically involves an older monk carrying a young noble lady across muddy ground on his back before he was shoved aside without thanks. The young monk continued complaining about the young woman for a long time, until the old monk finally said, “I set the woman down hours ago. Why are you still carrying her?”
[17] Chinese chess, but since you know; they’re Chinese, it’s chess. :P