I blogged about China for 5 years but still didn't mention the Chinese character. How can it be possible. Let me talk about the Chinese characters today.
It is Completely Different from English
I am not talking about the language itself, I am talking about the characters. Is there a difference?
The written language of many language, like English and German, are record of the pronunciation. You see the written language, and chances are, you can pronounce it.
Chinese charters are the record of meanings, or the object, and has separation between the oral language, or the pronunciation.
This major difference makes it possible for Chinese to survive in the last 2 thousands years, and, in my personal belief, to hold the country as a united country.
Examples
China is so large, and pronunciation of the same language changes dramatically. For example, in Southeast part of China, almost every village has their own variety of pronunciation, and it differs from each other every 10 km. More
After I wrote about Chinese Characters (which is an interesting topic), let me talk about the name of people in China. Just as the last article, I "intentionally" over-simplify it since 1) how can it be possible to tell the "complete" story with such a short answer 2) why people need to understand that details when they are first exposed to such topics.
What's in the Name?
I chatted with Chris the other day about giving naming to my son - it was not an easy task. I asked: Do you have explicit meaning in English names? I assume there is no for most names, and the choice is just about pronunciation and because people who are named with this name. (Is this true?)
The Chinese name is different. There are only limited number of Chinese characters (you cannot create a new one, and it is always impossible to create a "typo" on computer since you cannot create one characters on computer), and there are just a small subsets that are often used (within 2000). That means, every single More