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fàzhǐ

fàzhǐ (fà·zhǐ hair · {(to point with) finger → [to point]} → [hair to bristle up with anger] 发指 髮指) 👈🏼 Tap/click to show/hide the “flashcard”

[Notes: Tap/click on a Pīnyīn (Pīn·yīn {Piecing Together of} · Sounds → [Pinyin] 拼音) expression to reveal its “flashcard”; tap/click on a “flashcard” or its Pīnyīn (Pīn·yīn {Piecing Together of} · Sounds → [Pinyin] 拼音) expression to hide the “flashcard”. 📖 📄 📘 icons mean 📖 Reveal All, 📄 Reveal Advanced, and 📘 Reveal None re all the “flashcards” in the heading, paragraph, etc. that they are placed at the beginning of.]

One of the publications that is now recommended to be used on Bible studies is the Yǒngyuǎn Xiǎngshòu Měihǎo de Shēngmìng—Hùdòng Shì Shèngjīng Kèchéng ((Yǒng·yuǎn Eternally · {Far (in Time)} 永远 永遠) (Xiǎng·shòu Enjoy · Receive 享受) (Měi·hǎo Beautiful · Good 美好) (de ’s 的) (Shēngmìng Life 生命)—(Hù·dòng {Each Other} · Moving → [Interactive] 互动 互動) (Shì (Type 式) (Shèng·jīng Holy · Scriptures → [Bible] 圣经 聖經) (Kè·chéng Lessons · Procedure → [Course] 课程 課程) [Enjoy Life Forever!—An Interactive Bible Course (lff)]) (Enjoy Life Forever! (lff)) book. This week’s MEotW, “fàzhǐ (fà·zhǐ hair · {(to point with) finger → [to point]} → [hair to bristle up with anger] 发指 髮指)”, appears in lesson 13, point 5 of this book:

English:

Religions have misrepresented God in many ways. One notorious way has been their involvement in war.

Mandarin (WOL, Pīnyīn (Pīn·yīn {Piecing Together of} · Sounds → [Pinyin] 拼音) Plus):

📖 📄 📘 Cuòwù (Cuò·wù {staggered → [erroneous]} · false 错误 錯誤) de (’s 的) zōngjiào (zōng·jiào {schools of thought} · teachings → [religions] 宗教) zài (in 在) xǔduō (xǔ·duō numbers · many 许多 許多) fāngmiàn (fāng·miàn {directions → [sides]} · faces → [aspects] 方面) lìngrén (lìng·rén {have commanded → [have caused]} · people 令人) wùjiě (wù·jiě {being mistaken} · {to untie → [to solve] → [to understand]} → [to misunderstand] 误解 誤解) Shàngdì (Shàng·dì Above’s · {Emperor → [God]} → [God] 上帝), qízhōng (qí·zhōng them · among 其中) (one 一) ge ([mw]個/个) jiùshì (jiù·shì exactly · is 就是) cānyù ({taking part in} 参与 參與/預) zhànzhēng (zhàn·zhēng war · contending → [war] 战争 戰爭). Zhèi (these) zhǒng ({kinds of}種/种) xíngwéi (xíng·wéi {walkings → [doings]} · doings → [actions] 行为 行為) lìngrén (lìng·rén {command → [cause]} · people’s 令人)fàzhǐ (fà·zhǐ hair · {(to point with) finger → [to point]} → [hair to bristle up with anger] 发指 髮指).

The morphemes in “fàzhǐ (fà·zhǐ hair · {(to point with) finger → [to point]} → [hair to bristle up with anger] 发指 髮指) literally mean “hair finger”. As it often is, though, here the morpheme literally meaning “finger” is used to effectively mean “to point”. Other expressions that use this morpheme in this way include “zhǐyǐn (zhǐ·yǐn {(pointing with) finger → [pointing]} · guiding; leading 指引) and past MEotW “zhǐnán‐zhēn ((zhǐ·nán {(points with) finger → [points]} · south 指南)‐(zhēn needle) [compass])”.

Asian Feelings

The above translation from the Enjoy Life Forever! book is an interesting one that’s technically more evocative than necessary to directly translate the meaning of the original English passage—the English word “notorious” is made to seem a bit abstract and intellectual compared to the visceral image from “fàzhǐ (fà·zhǐ hair · {(to point with) finger → [to point]} → [hair to bristle up with anger] 发指 髮指) of anger so strong that it causes one’s hair to bristle and stand on end.

This reminds me of how, many years ago, when some of us used to have to act out Cantonese or Mandarin dramas for the conventions, we noticed that Cantonese or Mandarin recordings were sometimes noticeably more emotional than the corresponding original English recordings that we had been using for reference. While it has been a common stereotype that Chinese people (and other Asian people too) are “inscrutable” and relatively unemotional, the truth is that the human feelings that the relatively collectivist Asian cultures tend to suppress often end up just getting compressed, like steam in a pipe, and when the pressure gets to be too much, such feelings can end up getting expressed very intensely, maybe even explosively, when they finally are expressed.

Another factor is that sometimes, Westerners finding Easterners to be unemotional is just a matter of people of different cultures expressing emotions differently. This clip from the television show Star Trek: Strange New Worlds portrays an extreme, rather humorous fictional example of this:

Jesus’ Feelings

Seeing how profit-minded individuals had profaned his Father’s temple, Jesus was so moved by righteous indignation and zeal for Jehovah’s house that he went to the point of literally flipping tables. (John 2:14–17) The Bible also tells us that when some showed that they cared more about their Sabbath traditions than about giving practical help to those in serious need, Jesus was “looking around at them with indignation, being thoroughly grieved at the insensibility of their hearts”.—Mark 3:1–5.

Considering Jesus’ example of zeal for Jehovah, perhaps it’s quite appropriate to feel righteous indignation at how the world prioritizes glorifying human Chinese culture and preserving human traditions like those involving Chinese characters, when we are tasked with the urgent and actually more important work of effectively glorifying Jehovah (as the recently added song 159 encourages us to do) and helping Mandarin-speaking ones in spiritual need.


For convenience:

The direct link for the Pīnyīn (Pīn·yīn {Piecing Together of} · Sounds → [Pinyin] 拼音) Plus resource for the Enjoy Life Forever! book is:

The short link for Chinese field language-learning links for the Enjoy Life Forever! book is:

More Pīnyīn (Pīn·yīn {Piecing Together of} · Sounds → [Pinyin] 拼音) and Pīnyīn (Pīn·yīn {Piecing Together of} · Sounds → [Pinyin] 拼音) Plus web material based on the Mandarin Enjoy Life Forever! book will be made available in the Pīnyīn (Pīn·yīn {Piecing Together of} · Sounds → [Pinyin] 拼音) Plus web resource as time allows.

Categories
Culture Language Learning Science

jítǐ zhǔyì

jítǐ zhǔyì ((jí·tǐ gathered; collected · {body [→ [style; form]]} → [collective] 集体 集體) (zhǔ·yì master · meaning → [-ism] 主义 主義) [collectivism; community spirit]) ← Tap/click to show/hide the “flashcard”

Generally speaking, Western societies are considered to be relatively individualistic, while Eastern societies, like Chinese ones, are considered to be relatively collectivistic, emphasizing the collective, or group, over the individual. This week’s MEotW, “jítǐ zhǔyì ((jí·tǐ gathered; collected · {body [→ [style; form]]} → [collective] 集体 集體) (zhǔ·yì master · meaning → [-ism] 主义 主義) [collectivism; community spirit])”, seems to be the main Mandarin expression referring to such collectivism. (The MEotW post on “kǒngbù huódòng ((kǒng·bù fearing · terror → [terrorist] 恐怖) (huó·dòng living · moving → [activities] 活动 活動) [terrorism; terrorist activities]) contains a brief discussion about some other Mandarin -isms.)

Differences and Possible Causal Factors

While researching this post, I came across a scientific paper that has some interesting information about individualism and collectivism, including some information about measurable regional variations in collectivism that have been found across the Chinese mainland. Here is a quotation from it, regarding individualism and collectivism in general:

The distinction between individualism and collectivism captures important differences in how the relationship between self and others is constructed, as well as whether the individual or the group is understood as the basic unit of analysis (Cross et al., 2011; Hofstede, 2001; Markus & Kitayama, 1991, 2010; Oyserman et al., 2002; Triandis, 1995). People living in individualistic cultural contexts (e.g., the United States and the United Kingdom) tend to pay more attention to the achievement of their own goals and their own uniqueness. They have clear boundaries with others and pursue well-being or life satisfaction by sharing feelings and achieving personal success. In contrast, people living in collectivistic cultural contexts (e.g., China, Japan, and Korea) tend to be more concerned about maintaining harmonious relations with in-group members, and the boundaries between themselves and these others are much less firm. This distinction is reflected in cognition, perception, memory, cultural products, and even brain function (Morling, 2016; Nisbett & Masuda, 2003; Oyserman et al., 2002; Zhu et al., 2007). Many explanations for these differences have been proposed, including cultural heritage (Ma et al., 2016), modernity (Inglehart & Baker, 2000), climato-economic theory (Van de Vliert et al., 2013), the subsistence system (Uskul et al., 2008), the historical risk of infectious disease (Fincher et al., 2008), and geographic and relational mobility (Oishi, 2010).

Later in the paper, the authors divide China into four regions, and present a table listing some factors that may have contributed to the varying degrees of collectivism in those regions.

Triple-Line Framework of variations within China.

Table 1. Ecological Factor Differences Among the Four Regions.

Region I Region II Region III Region IV
Collectivism Lowest Lower Higher Highest
Climate Harsh Harsh Comfortable Comfortable
Water Less Enough Less Enough
Rainfall <400 mm 400–800 mm 400–800 mm >800 mm
Subsistence
system
Herder Wheat or herder/wheat-blended Wheat Rice
Voluntary
settlement
No Yes No No
Population
density
Low Low High High

Pluses and Minuses

Collectivistic societies can have certain good aspects, as expressed by this example sentence from the entry for “xūntáo (xūn·táo {cure (meat/etc.) with smoke} · {mould (as with clay)} → [influence positively; nurture; edify; train] 熏陶 熏/薰陶) in Pleco’s built-in dictionary:

Zài jítǐ zhǔyì jīngshén de xūntáo xià, háizimen hùxiāng guānxīn, hùxiāng bāngzhù. [Word division was edited.]

Nurtured in the spirit of collectivism, the children care for each other and help each other.

However, recently, some research has come out that shows that some negative ways of thinking, feeling, and acting are more likely to be displayed by those in collectivistic societies.

To clarify, here is a definition of “zero-sum” :

Of any system where all gains are offset by exactly equal losses.

So, a zero-sum game or system is one in which another must lose for one to win—no win-win situations. That means that if you hold zero-sum beliefs, as, according to the studies referred to in the above post, collectivists are more likely to do, then you will think that any goodness that’s enjoyed by someone else is goodness that’s no longer available to you.

Zero-sum thinking makes it difficult to have true empathy for others who are suffering, and it makes it difficult to follow the Bible counsel at Romans 12:15:

Rejoice with those who rejoice; weep with those who weep.

Collectivism and the Obsession with Chinese Characters

It seems, then, that there is a connection between collectivism and China’s obsessive refusal so far to move on from Chinese characters to more reasonable and modern writing systems like Pīnyīn (Pīn·yīn {Piecing Together of} · Sounds → [Pinyin] 拼音). Consider this excerpt from my article “Pīnyīn (Pīn·yīn {Piecing Together of} · Sounds → [Pinyin] 拼音) Was Plan A”:

In addition to those who feel that phasing out the Hànzì [Chinese characters] would be a regrettable cultural loss, I have also noticed that there are some for whom knowledge of Hànzì is a matter of pride and self-identity. They are proud of knowing the Hànzì as they do, and they view their knowledge of the Hànzì as part of what makes them who they are, as something that distinguishes them from those who don’t know the Hànzì. Such ones may defend the Hànzì to the point of irrationality in the face of a more accessible alternative that would make them and their hard-earned knowledge of Hànzì less “special”, that would threaten to render worthless all of the blood, sweat, and tears they have invested into grappling with these “Chinese puzzles”. It’s as if they are saying, “That’s not fair! If I had to go through all this bitter hard work to learn characters before I could read and write Chinese, then everyone else has to too!”

Self-Identity and Balanced Self-Love

Self-identity is one thing that can particularly be a struggle for those raised in collectivistic societies, since the self is relatatively often neglected in such societies. It’s perhaps not surprising then, that, as mentioned above, in the relatively collectivistic Chinese societies, with their relative paucity, or scarcity, of more healthy ways to build and maintain self-identity, so many have such an unhealthy, obsessive attachment to Chinese characters, as something to desperately hang their neglected self-identities on.

As Jehovah’s organization has commented, for us to follow well the command at Matthew 19:19 to “love your neighbor as yourself”, we must first love ourselves in a healthy way. Also, while Romans 12:3 telling each of us “not to think more of himself than it is necessary to think, but to think so as to have a sound mind” is mainly an admonition against the overly self-important thinking that individualistic societies can tend to promote, it also shows that it is necessary to think a certain amount of ourselves to have a balanced, sound mind.

In turn, it seems that our developing a balanced, healthy view of ourselves can contribute to our avoiding things like zero-sum thinking, and to our developing a balanced, healthy view of Chinese characters. From that balanced, healthy place, we can be free to develop a balanced, healthy view of the possible alternative of Pīnyīn (Pīn·yīn {Piecing Together of} · Sounds → [Pinyin] 拼音), which could empower us to serve Jehovah and help others in the Mandarin field as well as we ought to be able to.