Sweet Tangerines and Bitter Oranges: Elite Displaced Persons in the Rhetoric of Early Medieval China: Chung-kuo Wen Hsueh

Abstract

During the early medieval period, a number of poems were produced which ostensibly discuss different varieties of citrus fruit. In fact, these are considerations of the plight of aristocratic refugees, particularly those arriving from southern regimes. This paper examines this group of writings, with a view to understanding the way in which citrus-based rhetoric was used to analyze the position of these displaced persons, both from the perspective of the alien regimes attempting to recruit them, and from the refugees themselves pleading for patronage. Collectively, these works offer an unusual insight into the treatment of southern aristocrats after they were conquered or fled into exile, which is couched in terms of the flowering and fruiting of the tangerine, the sourpeel orange, and the pomelo. At the same time, these refugees were determined not to be equated with the bitter coolie or trifoliate oranges that their enemies sometimes compared them to.