Protest!

Lu laoshi, thank you so much for that clarification and for the additional terms. I still have a lot to learn about protest!

我很喜欢弄清楚这些词。

哈哈，反日游行，没问题。 (I mean that ironically.)

Yeah, it's an interesting area. There is a lot to learn about subtle differences between different form of protest, I am just scratching the surface.

Thanks for those other terms - I will put them in my 'collection'. :)

There are many forms of protest. Some are just out of sight of the foreigner. Recently I was grateful when my Chinese colleagues stood up to the bosses and refused to pay the proposed increase in transport charges at a new campus. The bosses backed down, and instead of the (huge) increases, the charges were cancelled - we all now travel for free. Teachers that is. The students are still hit with 8 rmb per trip, but now they are mobilizing...

haha, "preemptive parenthetical" 中文怎么说呢？

先发制人的插入语 。。

[My dictionary]. I will jump in immediately and say that I don't fully understand this 人 - well I guess pre-emptiveness is generally the product of human action (any ideas?)

Here's a real live 语 that I do understand ..

丝语 (the silky words spoken by one lover to another). :)

I heard that last night at a student Christmas party - I should put it on 'Heard it on the Street'. I post it here because it is not in my dictionary ..

先发制人 is a chengyu, it means to take the initiative and attack first (either literally or figuratively).

Sorry about that Bodawei, thanks for humoring me. '"I don't know!" would have been OK! I will make that my homework for the weekend, to figure out how to express that in Chinese.

Alot of the expressions like 先发制人 (and its counterpart 后发制人) emerged in a military or strategic type context, so its best to approach understanding their composition from that perspective. You asked about 人 - here it means something like 'others' or maybe the more specific 'opponent', and combined with 制人 means to 'control others'. Here 发 means to set into action, and 先 (or 后) indicates the temporal nature of the strategy or action. So the base meaning is to control or dominate others from taking initiative (and the counterpart is to wait for others to act and then counter, also often considered the wise strategy).

人 often has the meaning of 'others' (set in opposition to the self) in expressions, 助人为wei2乐 - treat helping others as a form of pleasure, 损人利己, harm others and aid oneself, etc.

班廷筠

Hi tingyun

I assume 班廷筠 is your Chinese name?? Sometime you should give us a run-down. I am deeply interested in names (and where people come from, their 家乡.)

Thnks a lot for your usual thorough explanation - a true 中国通。

I am learning a little about 象棋 but purely for the language and culture; I don't really have an interest in playing for its own sake. But I haven't got as far as 先发制人. I am still learning to be fluent in naming and describing moves (in a physical sense, not strategic).

Hi bodawei,

In 象棋 is 车 still pronounced ju1? I heard that somewhere...its interesting, alot of my classmates still use that pronunciation (its an older pronunciation) for 车 generally when reading aloud literary Chinese, as it helps preserve rhyme in poetry, and has a more classical feel to it.

班廷筠 is indeed my name, it was given to me last year by my Chinese language teacher here at Harvard, her graduate research was in ancient history, and she said she chose 班 for the Han general 班超 and 廷筠 as an older-feeling name (she generally went for a classical feel with the whole name)...there was a poet 温庭筠, though although the sound is the same, its a different 廷/庭. Generally, I find people that like literature and old culture also like my name, and people who don't sometimes dislike it. I had to endure one girl I met trying to explain to me why its a weird name and I should change it. Annoying, but I like the classical old feel to it, and honestly I tend to enjoy the company of those who have the same impression, so its a decent friendship litmus test. ;)

Thanks for the compliment, but I wouldn't claim to be a 中国通, as my knowledge is pretty limited in scope. I understand Chinese politics, history, and language fairly well, but with only 2 months spent traveling in China total, I'm pretty clueless about alot of realities of life there.

班廷筠

Hi tingyun

'In 象棋 is 车 pronounced ju1?'

I am learning with my tutor, a young man in his late 20s who doesn't even like 象棋 (he's no militarist - this is all my idea). We use contemporary pronunciations. But as I am sure you are aware there is no standard game, apart from conventions used for competition. There is a fair degree of variety in the board and the pieces. I would not be surprised if there was variation in pronunciation depending on how keen your sense of history is.

Thanks for the explanation of your name. I understand your annoyance when someone tries to persuade you to change it. Our daughter changed hers at one stage - her first name was 'full of meaning' and a clever transliteration of her English given name, but this was lost on Chinese people. She eventually adopted a common sounding Chinese name, but this time there is a clever pun associated with her profession (again this is lost on the Chinese who don't know what she does.)

I chose my own name - I get occasional compliments from older educated Chinese because although rare it is a Chinese name, and people love柏树. Actually that is why I chose it; I also love柏树.

I may be your complement in some ways - my knowledge of politics, history, and language is still shallow, but I love observing everyday life her. And I have seen quite a bit more of China than most Chinese people I meet - not that I can claim to know more (most people have a lot of book knowledge of their country) but experience counts for something.

My 'research' projects are fairly unambitious - this semester I collected details on all of my students about their hometown - I am writing something that will include observations on the mobility of Chinese students. And closer to home my project is to walk right across my city on the old railway line (with my camera), a cross-section of life here. The longer term project is to follow a metro line as a comparison - but that is just an idea at present.

Hi bodawei,

Sounds interesting - and a very fun way to experience China. :)

Gidday mate

Thanks for that. Looking back I think I was thinking of the noun 'protest' rather than the verb when I wrote the English translations in my original post (should have made that clear), and there is a subtle difference from my experience. So I may be closer to you than you thought. Protest is rather similar to demonstration, but in my mind the demonstration would need to be a group activity. What do you think? A protest can be staged by an individual - actually Lujiaojie gives us the example 绝食示威.

toianw also came up with 抗议, a verb - thanks for reinforcing that.

And I agree that we are not going to get the subtle differences in usage from dictionaries, and possibly there is variation from place to place.

I think I have four terms at least now to work with..

Hey bodawei, 抗议 can also be used as a noun, eg. 我对这规则有强烈的抗议。

What I am saying is that most of the forms we can use for "protest" are action descriptions: 示威/demonstration,rally; 罢工/strike, stop-work; etc. 抗议 is the only one that has the flavour of expression a person's belief/opinion/feeling. So in situations where we have to go beyond the action to the person's intent, 抗议 will do while 示威 etc will not.

Again my caveat - I am basing my use of the terms on their constituent characters. Actual common usage have this nasty habit of not conforming to my well-laid-out reasoning and rules!