From the time a friend said our online forums and blogs would be rè nào—‘hot and noisy’ I’ve had the phrase in mind. My son Tom mentioned it first when he took us to a restaurant in New York. He was disappointed with the meal but also with the atmosphere. It wasn’t Chinese, he said, it wasn’t rè nào. This weekend I’m working on an article about the 1971-2 Ping-Pong Diplomacy between China and the United States, and also finishing a book about China during World War II. I just came across this passage, which, like much of Han Suyin’s writing, explains something about Chinese culture and social structure.

The author here has taken refuge in the home of her “Big Family” in southwestern China, as the Japanese invade and bomb the country. (Her book was published in the UK in 1942, and is explicitly written to turn the world’s attention to China’s plight. The rape of Chinese women by the Japanese is one of many things she writes about, from a contemporaneous perspective.)

In the north we say jeh-nao. In Szechwan it is nao-jeh, the syllables reversed, but the same meaning. Literally translated it is ‘hot and loud.’ It means many people, a great deal of noise, a joyous crowding, excitement, fire-crackers, bright red colour, bright lights, everybody happy. I could never make the meaning fully clear to my English friends. Americans, I think, might understand. ‘A hot time’ – they say that, also.

All through the New year season it was nao-jeh, and when the festival was over it continued nao-jeh in a slightly lesser degree. It could not be otherwise in the Big Family, there were so many of us. We all lived together within sound of each other’s voices, coming and going through the courtyards under the watchful windows of all the relatives. We had no private concerns; it was taken for granted that everything should be known to all, discussed by all. Of course, this was intended for the best. The family stood together for protection. Its life was based on routine, ceremony, continuity. . . .

I require long stretches of solitude. But this was a thing my family could not understand. They liked it nao-jeh! Solitude was all very well for hermits. Certain of the poets, who had odd ideas, surely extolled the pleasures of lonely communion with nature. But who else in his right mind would not prefer to forgather with his own kind in genial social intercourse?

From pages 204-5 of Destination Chungking by Han Suyin.