The origin of the word shopping

The word "thing" is a general term we usually refer to all objects. Because in ancient times, East, West, North and South were usually matched with Jin Mu's fire, water and earth, which were called "five elements". Once in the Song Dynasty, Zhu went to see his friend. It happened that he was shopping in the street with a basket. Zhu asked him, "Don't you buy North and South?" Vincent replied, "The East belongs to wood, and the West belongs to gold. I can hold this basket of gold and wood. " The south belongs to fire and the north belongs to water. I can't put fire and water in this basket. So you can only buy things, not north and south. "

It turns out that the trees in the East represent all plants, such as flowers and trees. Western belongs to gold, representing all metal minerals, such as gold, silver, copper and iron; North and South belong to water, fire and earth. Water, fire and soil are common chemical phenomena or substances, which were easily overlooked by the ancients. Woody plants and metal minerals belonging to gold are usually valuable and can be used to represent all useful substances. So people associate "wood" with "gold", and the word "thing" comes from this.