Hey everyone!
I'm now here and settling into life in Beijing. Amongst other things, it turns out that in choosing a Chinese name, I have inadvertently called myself Oreo Cookies. It makes the previous post all the more relevant! This morning I woke up at about 6am and went for a cycle around the campus. I took a few pictures of morning life to try to give a feel for the place. There were a lot of people up already, cleaning and brushing staff starting work, older people taking morning exercise and some tourists too. I'm getting used to being stared at and being asked to pose for photos with people's kids now. With new parents bringing their kids to start Uni, there was a lot of pointing and staring. Beijingers themselves are used to foreigners, so luckily they don't take much notice.
The campus is huge, cycling around it took me about 1.5 hours, but I wasn't in any hurry. Generally people didn't stop me, but I wasn't allowed to take photos in the Main Building, the security thought a Westerner taking photos at 6am was quite suspicious. I don't have my teacher's pass yet so I made a swift exit. I cycled down to the lotus pond and around the older areas of campus. Originally this area of Beijing was part of gardens owned by the emperor, so it is pretty pleasant. There was an elderly choir practising in the exercise area which is like an outdoor gym (complete with weights, bars and badminton courts), they were quite good, but seemed much more focused on joking with each other and enjoying the morning than singing.
I can't work out how to put the photos on here, but I will find out soon. Just getting to my blog to write this has already been a little challenging... I'm going to go eat some dumplings for breakfast now, maybe I'll have worked out how to do photos by the time I come back.
Saturday, 29 August 2009
Saturday, 22 August 2009
Tricky Language
Ｔranslating between two languages is never easy， but translating English->Chinese is trickier than most. "Chinese" is composed of monosyllabic words and compound words consisting of fused monosyllabic words. For example, ming2（明）means bright and bai２（白） means white. Together as ming2bai2 (明白）they mean to understand. However according to my dictionary the sound "ming2", pronounced identically but written differently, also means name(名), to engrave(铭), bird cry(鸣), obscure(冥) and snout moth larva(螟). Therefore, an identical spoken sound can have multiple meanings only distinguishable by context or by writing it down. When a foreign company wants to introduce a new product into the Chinese market, it has two choices. It can take the easy way out by simply translating the meaning of the name or coming with an entirely new name. However, most companies like the idea of global branding so they prefer to come up with a name which is phonetically close to the original name. Even if the companies have been careful about selecting words with just the right meaning, the listener could actually hear or parse the name differently than intended. Some amusing mishaps / urban legends follow:
Coca Cola's first version of its Chinese name was different from the one it presently uses. Unfortunately, the company found the people interpreted its first choice as "Bite the wax tadpole" (蝌蝌啃蜡) or "Female horse stuffed with wax", depending on the dialect. Coke then settled with ke3 kou3 ke3 le4 （可口可乐）, which translates something like "tasty, can make you happy" or very loosely as "so mouth-watering it makes you happy．Pepsi didn't fare much later with the translation of its "Come alive with the Pepsi Generation" slogan. In Taiwan, it became "Pepsi will bring your ancestors back from the dead."
The KFC slogan "Finger- lickin' good" was interpreted as "Eat your fingers off."
At least the embarassment is shared, with huge numbers of signs in "Chinglish". In fact, Shanghai has just started a volunteer campaign to stamp out "Chinglish" there before the World Expo in 2010.
Friday, 14 August 2009
The Ideas of Face and Guānxi
In my previous time in China, a Chinese friend yelled at me that I had made her lose face in front of the class and she seemed very upset. I was confused as in the Western view of 'reputation' I did not see any loss. In the style of the HSBC advert, I already know not to give scissors, clocks, or sandals, not to wrap presents in white, blue or black, and to avoid giving new friends my umbrella in the rain. However the finer points of the Chinese social concepts of face, guanxi and ganqing are still a mystery. Hence I set out to find out more...
Face is divided into two separate but related concepts mianzi(面子) and lianzi(脸子). Lianzi is the confidence of society in a person's moral character, while mianzi represents social perceptions of a person's prestige. To illustrate the difference, gossiping about someone stealing from a cash register would cause a loss of lian but not mianzi. Repeatingly interrupting one's boss as he is trying to speak may cause a loss of mianzi but not lian. In the West, these concepts are not separated.
As someone new to China do I start with a score of zero for my face and have to built it up? Do Westerners escape the face system as foreigners to the UK can often escape the rigidity of the class system? I don't know.
The most common response to indicate acceptance of an apology in Mandarin is méi(yǒu) guānxi (没(有)关系) which literally translated means "doesn't have guānxi [implications]".
Guānxi is often translated as "network of contacts" and the net seems full of advice to businesses trying to move into China about the perils of ignoring guānxi. In fact, it is not a network based on friendship but a reciprocal network of favours and debt. The network can stretch very far and often a request for a favour will be transmitted through many people until it can be fulfilled. In return there will then remain a dormant debt which can rest for many years before it is called upon. As a Westerner, this doesn't sound that unfamiliar to me, but the websites seem to think differently. Maybe when (if) I see it in play, then I will understand.
As always comments and advice would be great, otherwise this blog is basically just me thinking out loud and not progressing any further!
A view over the fields and karsts of the Li river
Somewhere in Beijing..
Face is divided into two separate but related concepts mianzi(面子) and lianzi(脸子). Lianzi is the confidence of society in a person's moral character, while mianzi represents social perceptions of a person's prestige. To illustrate the difference, gossiping about someone stealing from a cash register would cause a loss of lian but not mianzi. Repeatingly interrupting one's boss as he is trying to speak may cause a loss of mianzi but not lian. In the West, these concepts are not separated.
As someone new to China do I start with a score of zero for my face and have to built it up? Do Westerners escape the face system as foreigners to the UK can often escape the rigidity of the class system? I don't know.
The most common response to indicate acceptance of an apology in Mandarin is méi(yǒu) guānxi (没(有)关系) which literally translated means "doesn't have guānxi [implications]".
Guānxi is often translated as "network of contacts" and the net seems full of advice to businesses trying to move into China about the perils of ignoring guānxi. In fact, it is not a network based on friendship but a reciprocal network of favours and debt. The network can stretch very far and often a request for a favour will be transmitted through many people until it can be fulfilled. In return there will then remain a dormant debt which can rest for many years before it is called upon. As a Westerner, this doesn't sound that unfamiliar to me, but the websites seem to think differently. Maybe when (if) I see it in play, then I will understand.
As always comments and advice would be great, otherwise this blog is basically just me thinking out loud and not progressing any further!
A view over the fields and karsts of the Li river
Somewhere in Beijing..
Thursday, 6 August 2009
Beijing welcomes you! 北京欢迎你！
Hey everyone!
I've decided to start to write this blog for two reasons. Firstly, to keep in touch and give you (my friends and family) some snapshots of my new life in Beijing, and secondly, to try to be your eyes to look at China up close. I don't mean this in an patronising way, simply I believe that although China's rise to prominence has grabbed much media attention, views of China tend to be heavily politicised through wariness of this new, recently awakened beast. I find that in the West there is often blunt criticism of Chinese policy without taking into consideration where China has come from, or simply put, that China isn't a Western first world country. The Chinese people already accept due to this, as any other developing country, there are many problems and the country still has far to go. What is refreshing is the pride that I have seen in people who now see the new vigour and strength of their country as something that they can work hard for.
I hope that you will approach what I write here with an open mind and let me know what you think about it (carefully). I too am going to go discover China, because I don't yet understand it either.
More simply:
I'm hoping to push past stereotypes such as this:
To show you that China is a bit more like this nowadays:
(Shanghai skyline)
I've decided to start to write this blog for two reasons. Firstly, to keep in touch and give you (my friends and family) some snapshots of my new life in Beijing, and secondly, to try to be your eyes to look at China up close. I don't mean this in an patronising way, simply I believe that although China's rise to prominence has grabbed much media attention, views of China tend to be heavily politicised through wariness of this new, recently awakened beast. I find that in the West there is often blunt criticism of Chinese policy without taking into consideration where China has come from, or simply put, that China isn't a Western first world country. The Chinese people already accept due to this, as any other developing country, there are many problems and the country still has far to go. What is refreshing is the pride that I have seen in people who now see the new vigour and strength of their country as something that they can work hard for.
I hope that you will approach what I write here with an open mind and let me know what you think about it (carefully). I too am going to go discover China, because I don't yet understand it either.
More simply:
I'm hoping to push past stereotypes such as this:
To show you that China is a bit more like this nowadays:
(Shanghai skyline)
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