Tag: chinese character

Sports and Enthusiasm

Published on by Zhi-Juan Guo

You cannot sham an emotion in that situation, and we like it because we know the joys and tears are all true. It would be impossible to feign the passion or pain that overwhelms you when you win or lose a gold medal. True emotions move and are contagious too. I found myself laughing as the gold medalist jumps in triumph, and eyes wet when they–and you could tell from their tears the effort and the trails they must have gone through to finally stand on that podium–cry.

Also, it does you good to witness someone does a thing so well. It’s a moment to be proud of being a human, and you marvel at, once and again, the capacity of the human body. They do, literally, swim like a fish, run like a lion, or a leopard, or any other animals that could run so fast…… Admiration rises in your heart as you watch the perfection of their skill, the grace of their movement.

Homer himself when narrating Odysseus’s long journey home, takes a break and sets up a scene of sports competition. And as far as thousands of years back, we see, as we watch today from a screen, the same sights: there is bad luck, bike crushed, boat overturned, ankle twisted……there is much talent in youth (初生牛犊不怕虎chūshēng niúdú bùpà hǔ, literally, new-born calves fear not the tigers), smooth-faced teenagers are winning gold after gold with seeming ease and enviable confidence……there is pride, the raising of a proud fist, the up-pointing of index fingers(I am Number One!)……there is arrogance, the strutting around in the stadium……there is grace and friendship, the taking of a humble bow, the gesture of embracing your rival after winning the gold……

The English word “compete” is from Latin competere, in its late sense ‘strive or contend for (something)’, from com-‘together’+petere ‘aim at, seek’. And its noun “competition” is from late Latin competitio(n-)’rivalry’.

And the Chinese word for compete or competition “比赛 bǐsàiis” formed by two characters “比” and “赛”.

比 bǐ now mainly means “to compare”, interestingly, in the beginning it only refers to two very close people standing side by side, and it indicates, of course, “closeness”.

Indeed, these two people are side by side next to each other: bending and bowing, maybe, to a coming guest.

And one version of it is to put two very big people together:

These are two big people with very long legs. The athletes, indeed, judging by the merit of their talents, become big, great people in our eyes.

Perhaps it’s human nature, when you put two people, or two things next to each other, you cannot help but to compare them, hence the modern sense of “compare and compete” derives from this same character that means “closeness” is not at all surprising.

赛 sài , when I look at this character in the dictionary, finding out its original meaning, I feel that as different as we, humans, all are, from different backgrounds and of different races, there must be continuous echos since the beginning of time from all different cultures. Here this echo I heard is the ancient Chinese shouted out to the ancient Greece: 赛, its original meaning is “give offering of thanks to gods”. Homer too, throughout his epic narration, also at the closing up of his scene of sports competition, never once omits offering sacrifices to gods.

This is one of the traditional versions of the character, while the upper part tells the pronunciation, the lower part tells the meaning: the gift, the sacrifice, money or gold or something valuable.

The modern version of the lower part of this character 贝bèi are now both a character by itself and a radical that related to money or gold or the valuables. And it all comes from the image of a seashell: for at one time in history, the Chinese apparently used one sort of seashells as currency.

Do they look like seashells to you?

So the athletes compete 比赛 and get their seashells, I mean gold if they win.

And competition must lie in the heart of human nature: the little girl looks back at me, gives me a challenging look and says: 我们比赛，看谁跑得快(Wǒmen bǐsài, kàn shéi pǎo dé kuài)! And off she runs, racing away!

The Complication of Being I

Published on by Zhi-Juan Guo

It’s a casual scene in a park: a woman gleefully ran to a poodle, squatted down in front of it, repeatedly kissed it, ruffled its hair and patted it in the most affectionate manner, all the while this quadruped stood mute and still, calmly taking on whatever the human wanted to do to him.

As I watched, I thought, it must be nice to inspire such ecstasy by merely showing yourself up. And I thought I would feel very good myself if someone was so very happy at the sight of me.

But what would I feel if some human, any human, chose to come on me like a mad thing and ruffle my hair all disheveled? Could I, like that poodle, take it on in so cool a manner?

Hm…..

As I stepped a bit further, I saw another dog coolly discharging his belly among all the passers-by and bustling in the park without the least shame.

Next to this dog in business, were a group of small children, two of them were standing very, very close–a closeness that would disquiet adults–and playing a game by pinching each other’s cheeks in turns, and after each pinch they poked into each other’s faces and examined the gradually disappearing redness the pinch had caused. They were so absorbed in the game and they were so close to each other that it’s evident they either forget themselves, or at that young age, very much like animals, they do not have a sense of self.

It is said that Eve was lounging about in the garden in the endless languid days until she ate the apple, then out she ejaculated : “Oh my God! I am naked!”

The English word “I” is related to Dutch ik and German ich, from an Indo-European root shared by Latin ego and Greek egō: a person’s sense of self-esteem and self-importance, a conscious thinking subject.

So to be I is to have privacy, to be I is to see and value yourself, and to be I is to think.

The Chinese character for “I”, 我wo3, was a lot more “down to earth” and practical: it comes from a weapon.

It’s still easy enough to tell the weapon.

Indeed, to be oneself, to see oneself, is to stand out of a group and declare one’s difference, and to defend.

But by fighting for I, I could too lose the I, and in this way even violenting my own self, for my eyes, instead of opening to my own nakedness, instead of meditating, reflecting within, avert and fix on the others’ could-be-imagined hostility:

This fiercely defensive I , still very much looks like a weapon, also means to kill.

It moves on, and becomes this body awkwardly holds a weapon to declare himself:

The left part could be the standing body of a man or a soldier: head, shoulder, legs; and the right part is the weapon he is holding.

The character we use today 我wo3, evolves directly from this awkward soldier clasping a weapon.

Have we got the better bargain?

I mused.

Before “I“, there was no privacy, no knowledge, no shame and embarrassment about one’s nakedness.

After “I“, there is seeing, there is thinking, there is also, weapon and blood.

I would like to think we have, as long as we look within, living in the constant wonder of this complicated and strange being called “I“, and when by averting my eye to “others”, holding my ground, maintaining the “I”, but seeing not “the others” as element of erasing the “I”, but a different “I”, who, by the difference and contrast, helps instead of hinders for I to see my own self.

And I mused and walked on, got in a squirrel’s way, it retreated a few steps and let me pass: it might be an act of politeness. Or it’s because both the squirrel and the Chinese know this truth of living: to keep oneself and be oneself is no laughing matter.