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.

Wednesday, 13 October 2021

A Wasted Ideographical Opportunity

Over the last few months, I have seen several amazing examples of Chinese ideographs that perfectly captured an idea with just a few strokes.

But last week, I came across a character that seemed to me to be entirely misapplied. It would have been just perfect to describe something else. I suspect the original person who thought of the ideograph did intend to use it correctly, but later unimaginative scholars couldn't see the obvious picture it was evoking, and applied it wrongly to another concept.

The character is 笔 bǐ, and against all my instincts, it means "pen".

To me, the character screams "scorpion". Just look at it!

How can something that so obviously looks like a scorpion (two pincers/pedipalps, six legs, and a tail) be used to mean something completely unrelated? It makes no sense to me.

I'm actually a bit upset at the waste. 我 很 难过 wǒ hěn nánguò.

I console myself with a mnemonic. The pronunciation of the character 笔 ("bǐ") happens to be the first syllable of the Hindi word बिच्छू bichchhu, which means scorpion. And it also sounds like "Bic", which is a brand of pen.

China dropped the ball there, and India picked it up for half a point.

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