Missionaries Archives - Mandarin Expression of the Week

chuán (boat; ship; vessel 船船/舩) ← Tap/click to show/hide the “flashcard”

This week, we are revisiting “chuán (boat; ship; vessel 船船/舩)”, an expression that was featured in an early Expression of the Week post on the tiandi.info blog. (If you need login information for the parts of tiandi.info that require it, request it by email, and include information on how you learned of tiandi.info and/or what group/cong. you are in.)

As shown in the image below, the first printing of the Insight book (on p. 328 of Volume 1) included a section regarding the Chinese character for “chuán (boat; ship; vessel 船船/舩)”:

P. 328 of Vol. 1 of the first printing of the _Insight_ book (1988), with a section about “船”

However, this section on this Chinese character no longer appears in current versions of the Insight book. Why might it have been removed?

Murky Speculation

Several years after the above-mentioned tiandi.info post was originally posted, I appended the following update to it:

Note that the section about the Chinese character “船 (chuán)” that was originally in the Insight book, Vol. 1, p. 328 is not present in the more recently published Chinese version of the Insight book.

Perhaps it was eventually decided that the origins of Chinese characters, which have been used for thousands of years, are too murky to do anything more than speculate about. I myself have recently become convinced that Chinese characters in general have been over-glamourized by the world.

It’s also worth going over an interesting, well-researched comment that the tiandi.info post mentioned above received. (Thanks again, Ed!) Here are a couple of excerpts from it:

The Insight article isn’t the only place in the Slave’s writings that the reference to this Chinese character appears. It originally appeared in the article “Chinese Characters—Why Are They Written That Way?” in g84 8/8 p. 23 [Here is a link to that article. Note that in addition to mentioning “chuán (boat; ship; vessel 船船/舩)”, this old article unfortunately repeats the Ideographic Myth. Also, it conflates language with writing, when actually, linguists understand that language primarily has to do with speech.—ed.], which ended with the caveat, “The similarity between the thoughts behind many of the Chinese characters and the Bible record of man’s early history is nothing less than remarkable. Although the evidence is only circumstantial, it is, nonetheless, fascinating to think that there is a possibility that the Chinese [characters contain Biblical concepts].”

The article was written in response to the book The Discovery of Genesis: How the Truths of Genesis Were Found Hidden in the Chinese Language, which had been published only a few years earlier. This book is full of fascinating parallels between Biblical accounts and elements that appear to comprise certain Chinese characters.

There are many resources available these days even to English speakers that contain scholarly research into the meaning and origins of Chinese characters. During the course of learning the language, I have made it a hobby to investigate some of these. I have to say that, based on what I have discovered, I disagree with the coauthors of Discovery of Genesis. In fact, there is a web site that has existed for several years for the purpose of rebutting these claims. While I don’t know the author’s motive for putting up the page, it does seem to have logical arguments.

…

For an alternative to Zhongwen.com, you could try looking up 船 at this site. (Disclosure: this web site is run by me.)

Truly right-hearted people won’t be stumbled if we share accurate knowledge from the Bible with them. But in any case, it’s best not to get too involved with matters of speculation that could be of interest to us but not have a direct bearing on God’s word of truth.

Sound vs. Meaning

The Raccoon Bend website page mentioned in the above quote contains some technical points such as the following:

A typical error made…is to analyze a semantic-phonetic compound as though it were compound-indicative (which they refer to as “ideographic”).

In other words, some mistakenly treat a character component that indicates sound as if it indicates meaning. The information at the Chinese-Characters.org link that the brother quoted above provided indicates that doing that with “船” seems to be what led to the story of “vessel + eight + mouths/persons”, when this character should actually be understood as being made up of the components “vessel + [phonetic (sound) component]”.

Stories vs. the Truth

As humans, we naturally love stories, since our minds use stories to make sense of the world around us. Also, stories add or reveal meaning or significance regarding things that these things would lack if they were not part of a story. However, not all stories are true. And while even fictional stories can help to reveal deeper truths about life, like Jesus’ parables did, false stories can take us farther away from the truth, if we let them. As the apostle Paul warned in 2 Timothy 4:3, 4:

For there will be a period of time when they will not put up with the wholesome teaching, but according to their own desires, they will surround themselves with teachers to have their ears tickled. They will turn away from listening to the truth and give attention to false stories.

While Chinese characters sometimes have appealing stories attached to them, let us make sure that we don’t let mere love of a good story take us away from the truth in any way. While naive tourists may be easily misled by appealing but false stories, as literal or figurative missionaries in the Mandarin field, we have a responsibility to serve God and our Mandarin-speaking neighbours “with spirit and truth”.—John 4:23, 24.

xuānchuán (xuān·chuán declaring; proclaiming; announcing · {passing on}; spreading; transmitting → [conducting propaganda; propagating; disseminating; publicizing | propaganda] 宣传宣傳) ← Tap/click to show/hide the “flashcard”

Several MEotW posts, including last week’s post on “cì’ěr (cì’·ěr {stabs; pricks → [irritates; pierces]} · ear → [grating on the ear; jarring; ear-piercing] 刺耳)”, have mentioned propaganda. So, it seems that it’s about time to consider the Mandarin expression “xuānchuán (xuān·chuán declaring; proclaiming; announcing · {passing on}; spreading; transmitting → [conducting propaganda; propagating; disseminating; publicizing | propaganda] 宣传宣傳)”, which is often used to translate “propaganda”.

Morphemic Breakdown

The “xuān (declare; proclaim; announce 宣)” in “xuānchuán (xuān·chuán declaring; proclaiming; announcing · {passing on}; spreading; transmitting → [conducting propaganda; propagating; disseminating; publicizing | propaganda] 宣传宣傳)” means “declare; proclaim; announce”, and it also appears in expressions like “xuānbù (xuān·bù declare; proclaim; announce · declare; spread; announce; publish; proclaim 宣布宣布/佈)”, “xuānjiǎng (xuān·jiǎng declare; proclaim; announce · {speak of → [explain]} 宣讲宣講)”, “xuānyáng (xuān·yáng declare; proclaim; announce · {raise → [make known]} 宣扬宣揚)”, etc.

The “chuán ({pass on}; {hand down}; spread; transmit [→ [summon]] 传傳)” in “xuānchuán (xuān·chuán declaring; proclaiming; announcing · {passing on}; spreading; transmitting → [conducting propaganda; propagating; disseminating; publicizing | propaganda] 宣传宣傳)” means “pass on; hand down; spread; transmit”, and it also appears in expressions like “chuándào (chuán·dào spreading · way → [preaching] 传道傳道)”, “Chuándàoshū (Chuán·dào·shū Spreading · Way · Book → [Ecclesiastes] 传道书傳道書)”, “chuánjiǎng (chuán·jiǎng spread · {speak of; say; tell} [(that)] 传讲傳講)”, “chuántǒng (chuán·tǒng {passed on} · {gathered together (things) → [interconnected system]} → [tradition | traditional] 传统傳統)”, etc.

The above-mentioned morphemes in “xuānchuán (xuān·chuán declaring; proclaiming; announcing · {passing on}; spreading; transmitting → [conducting propaganda; propagating; disseminating; publicizing | propaganda] 宣传宣傳)” are both basically verbs, and “xuānchuán (xuān·chuán declaring; proclaiming; announcing · {passing on}; spreading; transmitting → [conducting propaganda; propagating; disseminating; publicizing | propaganda] 宣传宣傳)” itself is also basically a verb. However, it’s also used as a noun, making it a verbal noun, or a gerundial noun, in those cases.

How Bad Is It?

As mentioned in the excellent Referenced Theo. Expressions (RTE) resource, “it seems 宣传 [xuānchuán] is a neutral word in Chinese (can be either positive or negative)”. Indeed, the morphemes that make up “xuānchuán (xuān·chuán declaring; proclaiming; announcing · {passing on}; spreading; transmitting → [conducting propaganda; propagating; disseminating; publicizing | propaganda] 宣传宣傳)”, mentioned above, are themselves both morally neutral. Like any technology, whether the things that these morphemes represent result in good or harm depends on how they are used. Unfortunately, we are now living in the last days of a world ruled by Satan the Devil, a world filled with self-seeking people who totally would misuse anything that would potentially enable them to exert influence over other people.—2 Timothy 3:1–5; 1 John 5:19.

It should not be surprising, then, that the worldly Chinese governing authorities may at times disseminate what many would recognize as propaganda—biased, misleading distortions of the truth meant to promote certain viewpoints, political or cultural objectives, etc. Add to that how Eastern culture generally encourages people to conform to the group and not question authority, and it’s not surprising that many who grew up marinated in Chinese culture have come to just accept such propaganda as fact, as just the way things are in the Chinese world.

As for the West, even though it has more of a culture of questioning authority, it, along with the world in general that the Internet can reach, has been experiencing a rise in misinformation and disinformation. Social media and other technologies that have become available have given people more power to select what information they want to take in, and, egged on by engagement-seeking algorithms, many have unfortunately chosen to just focus on information sources that tell them what they want to hear, whether it’s true or not. As the Bible foretold long ago:

For there will be a period of time when they will not put up with the wholesome teaching, but according to their own desires, they will surround themselves with teachers to have their ears tickled. They will turn away from listening to the truth and give attention to false stories.
—2 Timothy 4:3, 4.

As Jehovah’s people, we especially need to be wary of any worldly propaganda, because we want to be the true worshippers spoken of by Jesus, ones who “must worship with spirit and truth”.—John 4:23, 24.

Unfortunately, these days, even something as basically human as language gets politicized, so even just being language learners in the Mandarin field, we still need to watch out for worldly propaganda. Below are a couple of commonly accepted beliefs about the Chinese languages that are actually propaganda, not truth.

Propaganda About “Dialects”

“Mandarin, Cantonese, Shanghainese, etc. are just dialects of the one Chinese language.” The truth is that being mutually unintelligible, Mandarin, Cantonese, Shanghainese, etc. are really different languages, like French and English are different languages. The erroneous belief that Mandarin, Cantonese, Shanghainese, etc. are just dialects of the one Chinese language has been promoted by the worldly central governing authorities in China to bolster the idea that China is indeed one big happy political entity that should have a central government—them.

Historically, though, it wasn’t always the case that there was just one government over the land that China now occupies. That didn’t become the case until Qín Shǐhuáng ((Qín {Qin (dynasty)} 秦) (Shǐ·huáng Beginning · Emperor 始皇) (the founder of the Qín dynasty and the first emperor of China)) conquered the other Warring States—which were peers of his own state of Qín ({Qin (one of the Warring States)} 秦)—and became the first emperor of a forcefully unified China. If it wasn’t for this, China could conceivably have become like modern-day Europe, with several peer states which are recognized as having their own distinct languages and cultures.

So, there is no need to allow the idea that Mandarin, Cantonese, etc. are just dialects to sabotage our efforts to learn Mandarin well by making us think that we can just take Cantonese, etc. and twist it a little to get Mandarin—all we would get then is a twisted mess!

Propaganda and the Characters

“Chinese characters are the primary aspect of the Chinese languages.” The truth is that when it comes to human language, speech is primary, not writing.

However, given how so many people around the world are so enchanted with the visually intricate Chinese characters, some may feel that the characters give China a certain amount of cultural—and maybe even political—soft power. Many also feel that characters have a unifying effect on Chinese people, since they use characters to write even if they speak different Chinese languages, as explained above. Thus, many may also feel that there may be some political advantages to characters for China’s worldly central ruling authorities. So, they may thus be motivated to promote Chinese characters over, say, a system like Pīnyīn (Pīn·yīn {Piecing Together of} · Sounds → [Pinyin] 拼音) that doesn’t have the same perceived visual and cultural pizzaz that the characters have, and that is only for Mandarin.

The truth is, though, that there is really no technical requirement for any language, Chinese or otherwise, to be written using Chinese characters—Pīnyīn (Pīn·yīn {Piecing Together of} · Sounds → [Pinyin] 拼音) works fine as a writing system for Mandarin without incurring the extraordinary costs in time and effort that the characters do, and separate but similar alphabetical systems can conceivably be designed and used for other Chinese languages as well.

Re the supposed unifying effect of the Chinese characters, there is not necessarily really much of a unifying effect among the Mandarin-speakers, Cantonese-speakers, Japanese-speakers, Korean-speakers, etc. who may use characters to write, any more than the use of the Latin alphabet unifies English-speakers, French-speakers, Italian-speakers, Mandarin-speakers, etc. who may use it to write. An especially stark current example of the relative insignificance of any unifying effect that a script or writing system may have is that unfortunately, Russia and Ukraine have hardly been unified because of their both using the Cyrillic script.

We who are Jehovah’s people in particular don’t need a product of human culture like the Chinese characters to unite us—we are united by the culture of spirit and truth from Jehovah God himself!—John 4:23, 24.

Don’t Be a Gullible “Tourist”!

As Jehovah’s people, let us make sure we are advancing the interests of God’s Kingdom, and not unwittingly serving the interests of worldly Chinese governments. As missionaries and rescue workers in the Mandarin field, and not just tourists (email me for login information, and include information on who referred you and/or what group/cong. you are in), let us be focused on what really helps us to do our God-honouring and life-saving work better. Let us not be misled by the self-serving xuānchuán (xuān·chuán declaring · spreading → [propaganda] 宣传宣傳), the propaganda, from Satan’s world.

chuán (boat; ship; vessel 船 船/舩) ← Tap/click to show/hide the “flashcard”