Category: Shouts

Magic it up

Published on by Zhi-Juan Guo

—-How Chinese Characters were created? Part Two

It all started with drawing. But there is only so much you could draw. Pretty soon, the Chinese man realized that he has to come up with other ways to make characters.

The first idea is easy enough: signs. Human knows how to use sign language long before they know how to speak, let alone to know the complicated system of written language. So when you point up it means up, and when you point down it means down.

So it’s not hard to tell it means “up”.
As it’s easy to tell this one means “down”.

But even with this brilliant idea, the Chinese man sees that there are still an awful amount of characters he needs to create.

He thinks. He muses. He sighs. At last he sees before him, a man is putting a hand above his eyes, and even unconsciously, he looks at what that man is looking at, as if the man himself has told him “look!”

“Ah!” He thinks aloud. “I already have the character for ‘hand’ the character for ‘eyes’. If I put the hand above the eyes…..”

Do you still remember the symbol for “hand”?

How about the drawing for “eyes”?

The arrows point out how it evolves.

So what about putting a hand above your eyes?

What are you looking for? Yes. That’s the character for “look”.

So with this method, he managed to make many more characters:

He sees one man at the heels of another man.

“That means ‘follow’.” he says to himself.

He sees the sun and he sees the full moon.

“One illuminates the day, the other the night. They are both bright.” He again muses to himself.

And a person waving his arms, with one foot on the ground, the other striding out means “walk”.

There is something joyful and vibrating in the character. For one could tell the walking man is cheerful.

The close relationship between the Chinese and agriculture also shows in the characters, as words like “ox”, “goat” “pig” were the first created characters. So the concept that “the man begs food from the earth” was illustrated even in characters. As an inland country with a vast continent, the Chinese were not, roughly speaking, an ultra adventurous race: there was always land enough to plough and it never was worth one’s while to go to the sea and very likely get drowned. Even the word “water” is unlike the English word which shares the same root from “wave” of the sea. In Chinese the word “water”, instead of sea water, is from the river, and it flows with amazing tranquility and elegance.

The Americans

Published on by Zhi-Juan Guo

But I have to admit it’s too ambitious a topic, and I could only attempt to touch the surface here and there.

There is something brave and childish about the Americans. They admirably and naively believe that every problem has a solution.

It is partly this confidence, this optimism attracts me as a Chinese person. For being Chinese, you are forever silenced, you are never confident, you are not to see yourself. True that you could be if you are in a different class, but that’s the sort of authoritative, assertive confidence that repels rather than inspires.

There is health and happiness in this willingness to communicate, in this frankness and openness. In the street, on the subway, you forever hear Americans talking on the phone, talking to their family, friends or coworkers. Yet, this confidence, if combined with stupidity, could easily become arrogance and madness.

Maybe it’s a matter of where you derive this confidence, from within, from self-respect or from the conviction of your superiority and others’ inferiority.

Then among the Americans, there are white and non-white people(never in my life, I am reminded I am non-white as in America, then it’s understandable, given the circumstances). The white, to speak generally, has more of a chance to walk down an avenue in Manhattan like they own this world. Again, there is health in believing one’s strength until, of course, it goes down to a poisonous direction.

The non-white, oh, but what a hard road for those to travel. It too serves as a two-blade sword. It could make you an infinitely more interesting person: you are not considered cool, you are not seen, you are negligible. The mainstream, the main standard is never your friend. And from early on, you know you are different, and you are willing to accept difference. It’s easy for you to see both worlds, the white and the non-white, and have different perspectives, (as many of you speak both English and another language, or have ties back in the original country), while it’s more difficult (or the structure of the societly makes it unnecessary, or simply it does not make economic sense to do so.) for the white to understand the non-white. So, to speak roughly, the white could be (simply because it’s never required of them, at least not in a non-fictional sense, to see the others), it could sound paradoxical as they are more likely to get better educated therefore more cultured and open-minded, conventional.

Or, as a narrow income, a harsh surrounding, a squalid home could easily poison the mind and make one bitter. If you, as non-white in America, have not the strength to overcome (and it’s a lot to overcome) the hardships, you could easily be subdued and twisted.

How powerful what other people think of us could work on our minds! After walking by a few times by the blinding strong lights the police put out on the street corner, you begin to wonder if you are, as they think you are, a criminal.

But I am off topic now. The Americans, 美国人 Měiguó rén, the Chinese name them, beautiful country people. Here we are, with its problems and its optimism, paddling on.