Happy to know you are ready to join Master Zicius on this wonderful journey. In order to ensure that the experience will not be hindered by questions, please find below some useful information concerning the Chinese language that will help understand the context of this journey.
- Simplified Chinese vs Traditional Chinese
The Chinese used a more or less unified writing system from roughly 200 BC until 1949 AD. A civil war was fought in 1949 between two major political factions: the Communist Chinese and the Nationalist Chinese. The Communists militarily defeated the Nationalists, but not totally: the victors took over continental China and formed the People’s Republic of China (PRC), whereas the defeated Nationalists retreated to the island of Taiwan and continued to embody the Republic of China (ROC). Since neither side achieved total victory, both survived into the 21st century claiming to be the “legitimate” China.
In order to combat widespread illiteracy in Mainland China following the war, the PRC enacted a major linguistic reform to “simplify” the written language to make learning easier. This meant that a number of characters were redesigned, rewritten, and at times reinvented for practical (ease of learning) rather than historical or cultural reasons, and thus came “Simplified Chinese”. The ROC (and other Chinese communities overseas, such as Hong Kong) did not enact or adopt similar reforms in tandem, and kept the “traditional” writing system, hence the term “Traditional Chinese”.
Due to the historical scope of this journey, all characters will be primarily examined in their Traditional writing form.
- Historical accuracy vs Creative Liberty
Due to the ancient and tumultuous history of the Chinese civilisation, it is remarkable to note that the etymology of many Chinese characters has survived into the modern age, despite the countless evolutionary transformations that the language has gone through in 5000 years. The intent of our study is to be as historically and linguistically accurate as possible, in order to explain why and how a Chinese character is written the way it is written.
However, some characters have gone through so many transformations over the ages that its original design intent and etymology are no longer clear. Some transformations also injected “inconsistent changes” into the language, where one same character might have inconsistent meanings, or where one character transformed into a wholly different character over time. This means some characters will have very weak etymological elements, whereas some other characters will have multiple possible interpretations. Diverse and unique meanings can be extracted from a character if its original intent is no longer clear.
Granted that every character that is chosen for presentation here has been researched and historically examined prior to publishing, the systematic and academic methods will not yield the same success with every character in the language.
With that said, being entertaining, accessible and creative, is also an integral part of the journey. For this reason, creative liberty will occasionally come into play in order to tackle particular challenging or obscure characters.
Besides, Master Zicius’s wit and twisted humor are legendary! Never underestimate the devious master.
- Historical context vs Modern interpretation
China was Confucian society for most of its history, and Confucianism is an inherently patriarchal ideology. With very few exceptions in its history, Chinese society was mostly a male dominated society,. It is interesting to note that this male dominance can be quite visible through the study of the language. This is simply a note to remind everyone that the minds that created some of these characters were inextricably linked to the historical era and societies in which they lived.