Victor Mair’s terrific essay “Danger + Opportunity ≠ Crisis: How a misunderstanding about Chinese characters has led many astray,” which was written for this site, is featured this week in the Wall Street Journal‘s Notable & Quotable section.
Mair has done more than anyone else to help drive a stake through the heart of this myth. I’m glad the WSJ is helping spread the word.
source: “Notable & Quotable: Lost in Mistranslation“, Wall Street Journal, February 25, 2016
Don’t get excited. I’m still here. It’s pinyin.com, not pinyin.info, that changed hands.
Anyway, Pinyin-related domain names are “hot” these days. The pinyin.com domain name reportedly sold recently for a six-figure sum. Since the story was on a Chinese website, I suppose that’s a six-figure sum in yuan, not U.S. dollars, which would put the price somewhere between US$15,000 and US$150,000.
What irks me a bit is the story’s labeling of pinyin.com as the “real” pinyin domain name (“zhēnzhèng de ‘pīnyīn’ yùmíng”). Bah. Humbug.
If you readers ever check in one day to discover that my site has become permanently plastered with advertising, crappy content, and cutesy cartoons, it won’t be because I sold out for a mere six-figure amount in Chinese yuan. After all, a truly world-class collection of Hello Kitty memorabilia would cost me a lot more than just that. A man’s gotta maintain standards, you know.
source: Zhè cái shì zhēnzhèng de “pīnyīn” — mǐ yǒu zhōng 6 wèi mǎi yùmíng pinyin.com (这才是真正的“拼音” 米友中六位买域名 pinyin.com), eName.cn, February 20, 2016