Americans are fond of referring to their country as "the greatest nation on earth". Until recently, I didn't believe any country deserved that description. But today I think there is a strong contender for the title.

China is the world's oldest living civilisation. It has recovered from over a century of colonial oppression and lifted its citizens out of poverty. As its growth continues, China is poised to become the world's largest economy and a technology leader that is second to none. By 2030, I believe it will be an indisputable fact that China is the greatest nation on earth.

I need to understand China, from a Chinese perspective. This is my journey.

Saturday 7 August 2021

A "Welcome" Reminder Of The 2008 Beijing Olympics

As we approach the end of the 2021 Tokyo Olympics, something just happened to remind me of the 2008 Beijing Olympics. I was practising with Duolingo last night, when it spoke the word 欢迎 huānyíng aloud and challenged me for the meaning.

My son, who was nearby and couldn't help overhearing, said, "Welcome!"

I was astonished. How did he know, when he wasn't even learning Mandarin?

It turned out that during the Beijing Olympics in 2008, his Year 6 class at school had an assignment to make a presentation on the games.

His group focused on the five mascots of the games - Beibei, Jingjing, Huanhuan, Yingying, and Nini.

Repetitive names are meant to be diminutive and "cute", which is why children (and often women) have repeated names. This Quora answer explains it better.

Shorn of the repetition, the five mascots together spell 北京 欢迎 你 běijīng huānyíng nǐ, or "Beijing welcomes you!"

As we have seen earlier, 北京 běijīng means "northern capital", and 你 nǐ means "you".

欢迎 huānyíng was the one unfamiliar term in this sentence, and now, thanks to my son's quick-witted response, I'm never going to be able to forget it.

A word of warning, though. If you don't pronounce the tones correctly, you may be saying something very different.

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