In the Guardian today
an article started with the sentence "The Chinese, according to John
F Kennedy, use two brush strokes to write the word "crisis". The
first stands for danger; the other for opportunity". Supposedly this refers to 危機 weiji.
firstly, it's certainly
not two "brush strokes". Depending on whether you use traditional or simplified characters, it's either
twelve or twenty two brush strokes. Two would
be miraculous. ThoughKennedy probably
meant two characters.
secondly, While the wei 危 does indeed mean
danger and usually appears in compounds like "dangerous" 危險,
機ji doesn't mean
opportunity. The mistake perhaps arises because ji 機 appears in the compound 機會 jihui, which does
mean opportunity. However, on its own the character doesn't mean anything, but
most would see it meaning "machine" as it appears in the compounds 飛機 feiji airplane 機器 jiqi machine, 機算計jisuanji calculator,
機車 jiche moped and 機器人 jiqiren robot.
The second problem
with this statement is that it leads the reader to a kind of Sapir–Whorf
conclusion that's wholly unwarranted. We are suppose to take from this
sound-bite that the Chinese, because of their language, see crises as
opportunities (and perhaps, therefore we should learn this from them). However
this is very silly and ranks up there with Eskimos having [insert number] words
for snow. Take
the word "breakfast" which is composed of the word "break"
and "fast"; do we actually think about the breaking of a fast when we
use this word? I would argue that you would be a very peculiar individual if you
did. If a Chinese reporter indicated that
the English view breakfast as a religious
event, or that English speakers were such gluttons that going to bed, and thus not
eating, was such a strain it was considered as a "fast" it would seem
laughable to us.
So in short, great for
motivational speakers and pithy facebook updates, not much good for linguistics.
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