As the story opens, Serenity is strung with Christmas
lights on its exterior.
In the 'Verse, Christmas is mostly known as Sheng Dan Jieh,
Chinese for "Holy Birth Festival."
Jayne is wearing the chullo hat made for him by his mother that
he received in the mail in "The
Message".
Kaylee is famed for her talent of turning protein bars and
synthetic foodstuffs into savory desserts.
On page 5, Jayne retorts to River, "What tzao-gao
business is it of yours what I see in my head?!" Tzao-gao
literally means "messy cake" in Chinese, but is generally used
for virtually any short curse phrase you'd like to use in a
sentence, such as "crap", "damn it", or "god damn."
Page 6 depicts Jayne at Li Shen's Bazaar. This space bazaar
first appeared in "The
Message".
On page 8, Jayne says, "You ching-wah tsao duh liou mahng!"
This is Chinese for "frog-humping son of a bitch!"
On page 9, a sign at the bazaar invites patrons to see the one
true Shengdan Laoren, a.k.a. Santa. Sheng dan lao ren is
Chinese for "Christmas Old Man", the Chinese version of Santa
Claus. Jayne sees the red-and-white dressed skeleton of the
figure on the next page with a sign reading, "SHENGDANLAOREN!
ORIGIN BLOOMINGTON, BAZAAR OF AMERICA, EARTH-THAT-WAS." As far
as I can find, the Bazaar of America is fictitious. There are a
number of cities and towns named Bloomington in the United States
of America.
In panel 4 of page 9, Jayne sees the same "alien" in a jar that
Simon and Kaylee saw in "The
Message".
In the background of the above panel is an angel skeleton, with
its plaque stating its origin on Wender's Moon, Xuan Wu system.
This is the first mention of Wender's Moon in the 'Verse. Xuan
Wu is the main star of the Kalidasa system.
On page 12, Jayne's vision of the deceased Shepherd Book uses
the phrase "through a glass darkly." This is a phrase found in
the Book of Corinthians in the Bible.
The vision of Shepherd Book remarks that he's become Jayne's
"Ghost of Shen Dan Jieh Past." This refers to the Ghost
of Christmas Past, a character in Charles Dickens' 1843 novella
A Christmas Carol.
On page 13, Book takes Jayne to his (Jayne's) "homeworld" of Sycorax. Book
remarks that it was Jayne's eleventh home in as many years as a
kid. Jayne and brother Mattie lived there when their mother took
a job as the off-season caretaker of a lake resort lodge.
Jayne and Mattie's mother had spun a story that their missing
father was a secret agent in the Xuan Wu system.
As Mattie-boy pulls Jayne-boy out of the ice-cold water of the
frozen lake, he says "Probably gonna get damp-lung saving
you..." Mattie was said to suffer from damplung in
"The Message". Damplung appears to
be a fictional disease name, but may be a slang term for
tuberculosis, a bacterial infection largely of the lungs.
In Jayne's vision on page 18, the statue of himself he sees is
the one that the mudders put up in the town of Canton on
Higgins' Moon as seen in "Jaynestown".
On page 19, Jayne reveals that he once had a pet
turtle named Vera. He currently has a favorite gun named Vera,
as seen in several past stories.
In Jayne's vision on page 20, Shengdanlaoren rides an
anti-gravity sled pulled by four horses.
On page 22, Shengdanlaoren remarks that the glitching
septic system and flies are spreading blue death. "Blue death"
is another name for cholera, a bacterial infection usually the
result of poor sanitation in a community. The nickname comes
from the blue-grey tint that skin may take on due to extreme
loss of fluids.
The "Ghost of Christmas Future" shows Jayne a future vision of
Washbot, who will not meet the crew until
"Return to
Earth-That-Was" Part 1, so it seems Jayne had a genuine
precognitive vision. He also sees a potential future crewmember
named Dane, who replaces Jayne himself on Serenity.
Dane mentions having spent six weeks in a Caliban spider-hole.
Caliban is the only moon of Miranda.
On page 29, Kaylee refers to Jayne as one of the "hideous
shee-niou men." Shee-niou is Chinese for "piss
washed."
On page 30, it appears that Kaylee has dressed up the doorways
of all the main crew quarters with Christmas lights.
Emma shows Jayne his body on an asteroid called Lethe, a
necropolis where the corpses of worthless people are
unceremoniously discarded and forgotten. This is the first
mention of Lethe in the 'Verse, though it may be the same
asteroid mentioned as Leyte in the Kalidasa system in
The Verse in Numbers.
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Episode Studies
