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To any Chinese...Why oo lots of Chinese things have such grand names?

Discussion in 'BBS Hangout' started by robbie380, Mar 27, 2003.

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  1. robbie380

    robbie380 ლ(▀̿Ĺ̯▀̿ ̿ლ)
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    I bring that up because I am taking a communist China class since I wanted to learn more about a place that I know little about, and it seems like every government program or anything Chinese has some grand name. Like the Great Leap Forward, the Gate of Heavenly Peace, the Hundred Flowers Campaign, the Great Proletarian Cultural Revolution, the Long March, the "Three-Anti" campaign, the "Five Red Classes", the "Great Strategic Plan", and so on. Are all these just a product of Mao and wanting to use grand language to inspire or are these just a part of how Chinese is spoken?

    Also I notice whenever someone posts an article that is directly translated from Chinese to English from a program like babelfish that there a lot of phrases that sound very artistic and historical. Like the one I remember off the topic of my head is how Coach Rudy T is referred to as a the soup commander or something like that. Anyhow...again is that just how Chinese sounds if you directly translate it without understanding where the phrases come from?
     
    #1 robbie380, Mar 27, 2003
  2. Shrimpie

    Shrimpie Member

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    Robbie,

    That's a good one. I would say it is more a cultural thing. I don't know if I am able to explain this well in English, but Chinese like to use grand names for activities or buildings (you can say to inspire). A name is actually important for Chinese in general not just for an activity. Parents typically spend a lot of time naming a new-born kid. A person's name usually has "profound" implicaitons. For example, people who look at my name carefully might be able to figure out which year I was born and see some "great expecation" for me from my parents :).

    Also, when we translate foreign language names phonetically, we like to pick "good" words for those names since in Chinese different words can have tottally mearnings but with the same pronouciation. "America" is translated into " beautiful country" (or "Beautiful, Sharp and Hard") in Chinese; " brave country" is for England, "lawful country" is for France, "ethnical country" for Germany.

    Hope this will help.


    Shrimpie
     
    #2 Shrimpie, Mar 27, 2003
  3. Shrimpie

    Shrimpie Member

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    that "ethnical " should be "ethical". No editing allowed. Always confused with those two words.

    Shrimpie
     
    #3 Shrimpie, Mar 27, 2003
  4. FranchiseBlade

    FranchiseBlade Contributing Member
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    I think we all know a bunch of jokes that could be inserted here. I wonder if people will avoid the obvious jokey tact here.
     
    #4 FranchiseBlade, Mar 27, 2003
  5. Castor27

    Castor27 Moderator
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    Exactly it has taken all I really wanted to post something sarcastic about those 2 countries but I am using my extraordinary will power to stop my self.


    CK
     
    #5 Castor27, Mar 27, 2003
  6. StupidMoniker

    StupidMoniker I lost a bet

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    Nothing like Nazi-ism to earn you the name Ethical Country. :D Sorry, couldn't help myself.
     
    #6 StupidMoniker, Mar 27, 2003
  7. Easy

    Easy Boban Only Fan
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    FWIW, the Chinese transliteration of "Nazism" means "acceptance of purity."
     
    #7 Easy, Mar 27, 2003
  8. mateo

    mateo Contributing Member

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    Come on, like "Robbie" isnt the grandest name of all?????
     
    #8 mateo, Mar 27, 2003
  9. Mr. Clutch

    Mr. Clutch Contributing Member

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    What does "fat" mean in Chinese? I see a lot of names with it. Like "Rocketfat" or "fatfatcow." I see hardly any Americans calling themselves fat...Just wondering...
     
    #9 Mr. Clutch, Mar 27, 2003
  10. Mr. Mooch

    Mr. Mooch Contributing Member

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    Or even Chow Yun-Fat.
     
    #10 Mr. Mooch, Mar 27, 2003
  11. Easy

    Easy Boban Only Fan
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    It never occurred to me that Rocketfat and fatfatcow are Chinese. :eek:

    "fat" = properous
     
    #11 Easy, Mar 27, 2003
  12. Mr. Clutch

    Mr. Clutch Contributing Member

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    Ahh, so it means prosperous. Thanks, that has been bothering me for a while.

    I'm pretty certain fatfatcow is Chinese, I don't know about Rocketfat.
     
    #12 Mr. Clutch, Mar 27, 2003
  13. robbie380

    robbie380 ლ(▀̿Ĺ̯▀̿ ̿ლ)
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    That was the other point I meant to bring up too. In this book I just finished reading Son of the Revolution by Liang Heng he was talking about how during the Cultural Revolution people were changing their names to ones that were more revolutionary like Wen Jian-ping (Wen Establish Peace) to Wen Zao-fan (Wen Rebel) or Li Lin (Li Forest) to Li Zi-hong (Li Red from Birth) or Zao Cai-fa (Zao Make Money) to Zao Wei-dong (Zao Protect the East). Anyhow I think its kind of neat to hear that someone's name means something since our names in the West don't mean crap. Ok just wanted to throw that out there.
     
    #13 robbie380, Mar 27, 2003
  14. MoBalls

    MoBalls Contributing Member

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    Well acturee my name is weery He Hung Lo.......Hmmmm
     
    #14 MoBalls, Mar 27, 2003
  15. Lil

    Lil Contributing Member

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    fat: cantonese for "fu2" or fortune.

    frankly i think government programs all over the world are usually named in grand fashion. it is just politics and sloganeering.

    America is filled with them too. Teddy Roosevelt's Great White Fleet. FDR's New Deal, LBJ's Great Society. Reagan's Strategic Defensive Initiative, Bush's New World Order, Clinton's Partnership for Peace, etc. etc.

    Maybe because China has much more government intervention in development, using such clearly directed drives and massive programmes, that it makes sense for her to use clear grand titles to get her people on board.
     
    #15 Lil, Mar 27, 2003
  16. JuanValdez

    JuanValdez Contributing Member

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    That may be more of a socialist thing than a Chinese thing. Socialists and communists made a practice of adopting new revolutionary names. Lenin and Trotsky are both made up. Stalin is also made up; it means "Steel" as if he were some badass biker punk or something. I can't remember my non-Russian examples, but I had some.
     
    #16 JuanValdez, Mar 27, 2003
  17. Lil

    Lil Contributing Member

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    the recently elected 4th generation of Chinese leaders (succeeding Jiang Zemin), almost all have pretty mundane (usually literary), nonrevolutionary names.
    out of the 9 politburo members, i see only one with a revolutionary name (containing characters such as dong-"east", hong-"red", hua-"china", zhong-"china", fan-"rebel", shin-"new", nong-"farming", ming-"people", etc. etc.). it looks like the people who did change their names apparently were no better off.. the educated elite still named their kids with good old literary themes, and these kids still ended up as the leaders. people who adhere too strictly to the revolution, well, probably got washed out during the last twenty years of capitalist reform... :confused:

    it is kind of funny, because in taiwan too, you can always tell apart the decendents of those Chinese nationalist soldiers who retreated to the island after 1945 from normal taiwanese people, because like all of them (at least the males) have hokey names like "saving china", "strengthing china", "building china", "helping china", or with martial themes like "warrior" or "loyalty" or "patriotism", etc. etc. At the same time, native Taiwanese will almost always avoid these themes... And of course, NOBODY will have a name remotely suggestive of communism... :p

    just my 2cents.
     
    #17 Lil, Mar 27, 2003
  18. LiTtLeY1521

    LiTtLeY1521 Member

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    China in Chinese is "Middle Country."
     
    #18 LiTtLeY1521, Mar 27, 2003
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