Category Archives: China

Gee, the things found in dictionaries

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Another interesting story mentioned on Danwei is a tale of a dictionary, prostitutes, and chickens:

A scandal has erupted in Shenzhen after a primary school dictionary was found to have included the slang definition of the Chinese word for chicken, which means prostitute. What a scandal! Living in the wholesome boomtown of Shenzhen, no one would ever guess that there are such things as prostitutes.

The Shanghaiist links to an English-language article on this (Book clucks and quacks with sex talk). Here’s an excerpt:

An online survey conducted on the People’s Daily Website found that nearly 64 percent of the respondents considered the dictionary harmful to children, and more than half said the editors should be punished.

The others didn’t think the second definition was a big deal.

The Chinese word for “prostitute” is “jinu.” Its first syllable is pronounced the same as “ji,” making it a widely used slang reference for a female sex worker.

The book introduces itself as a modern dictionary especially designed for students.

An editor surnamed Zhang at Nanfang Press, however, told the Beijing Youth Daily that only one edition of the dictionary was published and any future editions will drop the sexual references.

The dictionary is now difficult to find in Chinese’s bookstores and online shops. But collectors who do locate a copy also might want to check out the reference for “duck.”

The dictionary goes on to define “ya” as a male prostitute.

Here’s j?:
鸡 / 雞

Zhuang ms found, resembles Naxi documents

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An ethnic culture research worker in Funing County, Yunnan Province, China, has come across an old Zhuang book of songs. What makes this manuscript particularly interesting is that the songs are written down not in a regular script but rather in something similar to Naxi pictographs, i.e. pictures that serve as mnemonic references to the text rather than as real pictographs or real writing.

The article I read on this is a little vague, so I’m hoping someone can come up with some images of the manuscript or a more scholarly source.

source: Yúnnán fāxiàn Zhuàngzú gǔlǎo xíngtài túhuà wénzì — kān pìměi Dōngbā wénhuà (云南发现壮族古老形态图画文字 堪媲美东巴文化), CCTV.com, August 16, 2006

Beijing Olympics to use icons modeled after seal script

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Danwei notes that Beijing’s Olympics committee has come up with its version of the icons for the sports of the games. These graphics are modeled after seal script, a style of writing that came to prominence about two thousand years ago.

images of icons for the 2008 Olympics in Beijing, China
Above are the icons for baseball, shooting, sailing, softball, cycling, and golf hockey.

Here’s part of how the committee describes the items:

Named “the beauty of seal characters” and with strokes of seal characters as their basic form, the Pictograms of the Beijing 2008 Olympic Games integrate pictographic charm of inscriptions on bones and bronze objects in ancient China with simplified embodiment of modern graphics, making them recognizable, rememberable and easy to use.

Although seal script can still be seen on name chops (seals) and some calligraphy, few people can read it well if at all.

additional resources:

source: New Olympic Icons, Danwei, August 7, 2006

Miao people losing their language: report

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From Xinhua:

The language spoken by the Chinese Miao ethnic group in southwest China’s Guizhou Province is in danger of disappearing, a local political advisor has warned.

“Native people in Miao villages communicate in their own language less and less,” said Han Kan, vice chairman of the Ethnic and Religious Affairs Committee of the Guizhou Provincial People’s Political Consultative Conference, citing a report made by his organization.

In the Tianzhu County of the Qiandongnan Autonomous Prefecture of Miao and Dong Nationalities where Miao people live in a compact community, only 32 out of 112 Miao language-speaking villages use their own language, according to the report.

In Qiandongnan’s Taijiang County, where the Miao population accounts for 97 percent of the total, 40 out of 180 Miao villages no longer use the Miao language.

In Danzhai County, also in Qiandongnan, only 60 percent of the people — mostly over 50 years old — speak their own language. In 1999, the figure was 85 percent.

I hate writing a post about a non-Sinitic language of China without S. Robert Ramsey’s invaluable The Languages of China at hand. But I won’t be able to get to my copy of this for several more days and I’ve been putting off finishing far too many posts as it is.

source: Language of China’s Miao ethnic group may disappear, Xinhua, July 27, 2006

Shanghai theater puts on play in Shanghainese

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It’s a sad situation that it’s newsworthy when a play is presented in the native language of most of those in one of the world’s largest cities. But in this case it’s also an occasion for hope.

Recently, for the first time in decades, a drama primarily in Shanghainese was presented in Shanghai. (I would guess that local operas, however, have been performed in Shanghainese with little interruption.) Unfortunately, as the Shanghaiist reports, there were some problems with this production of 《乌鸦与麻雀》 (Mandarin title: Wūyā yǔ Máquè; English title: The Crow and the Sparrow).

[T]he blame is being assigned to the fact that the production was too hastily prepared, leading them to overlook things like subtitles.

You might ask, why, if most of the dialogue is in Shanghainese, would people other than non-locals need subtitles? It turns out that aside from standard Shanghai dialect, Ningbo, Suzhou, Shandong and other dialects were also thrown in—the story takes place during the Republic period (1911-1949) at a time when many immigrants were first putting down roots in Shanghai. The production team also prepared a putonghua version of the play, which they used during the last performance here and will use if they take the play to other parts of China. All in all, it seemed as if this was a less than ideal way to restart this tradition.

Nonetheless, I’m encouraged that the authorities allowed this play to be staged in Shanghainese. Perhaps its roots as a popular film from the late 1940s and its anti-KMT storyline helped it get by the censors.

The Shanghaiist also mentions an interesting-sounding book: Rendering the Regional: Local Language in Contemporary Chinese Media, by Edward M. Gunn. The introduction (663 KB PDF) is available online. I look forward to reading the entire book once I can find it in a library or locate an inexpensive copy.

sources:

oracle bones site makes World Heritage list

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The PRC has been trying for several years to get Yin Xu (the Ruins of Yin) in Xiaotun, site of important finds of oracle bones, included on the United Nation’s list of World Heritage Sites. Oracle bones are pieces of turtle shell or animal bone on which were inscribed early forms of what eventually came to be Chinese characters.

This year Yin Xu was finally voted in.

This year’s new additions also include giant-panda sanctuaries and the Tequila-producing area of Mexico.

sources:

prospects for Chinese writing reform: important new work

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John DeFrancis — whose name should be familiar to most readers of this site, especially for his essential work The Chinese Language: Fact and Fantasy, which contains his refutation of the ideographic myth — has just published a new article: “The Prospects for Chinese Writing Reform.”

This article is the first in the new, electronic-format releases of Sino-Platonic Papers. Moreover, these new issues will be available free of charge.

I strongly recommend reading this.