Bai vs Mao Chinese tea terms

For those who speak Chinese or who can tell me...both of these are sort of roughly translated as "white" or "downy"...can someone tell me the sublteties or the differences if any?

And I've been really wanting to ask this: What does "Mao Tse-Tung" translate as? Just very curious.

Melinda

Reply to
Melinda
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Bai is white (the character ri, which means sun is identical to bai except for a dot on top if it), and Mao is hair. As far as individual characters go, there aren't really many subtleties. When they are among different characters, there can be much more information and meaning. The more complex characters can have other characters added together to mean something relating to those characters. For example, the character for wood is Mu...two Mu will give you Lin which means small forest...three Mu, sen, means big forest.

"Mao Tse-Tung" (Mao Zi Dong). Mao is the family name (same character that also means hair). Zi is actually a little complex in that it literally means a place with much water and plants; swamp. A portion of the character 'jiang' can be seen in the character that means water, and one of the other parts means plants (not totally sure about the plants part...still learning!). Dong simply means east.

So we have: Hair, Swamp, East. Meaning...I don't know....perhaps only his father knows.

It's confusing. heh.

Reply to
Mydnight

Made a mistake posting during late hours.

It's Ze and not Zi.

My friend said the character Bai is shorter and more fat also....so not exactly identical, but close.

Ze can also mean bright (like jewels or metal)....so the name ze dong can mean hope or bright coming from the east....or there is hope for the east . It can also mean an eastern swamp, which is my personal favorite because the others sound self-inflated. I would guess he changed his name at some point considering he came from a poor farming village.

Reply to
Mydnight

Ze is not that easy, Midnight. Ze is also fertility (swamps in China are best places for naturally growing rice) and also "capable, talented" and "brilliant" as in "he is brilliant"). Mao is not just "hair" but also a family name and as such it lost its immediate meaning like "Smith". Trying to make sense out of all three characters seldom make sense, out of given name - almost always does. "Brilliant East" is not a bad name for a guy who completely overhauled and ruled largest eastern country in the world that today threatens to become a huge superpower, IMHO

Usually a boy in a family at the time will have a "child name" given by the parents, but later in life his teacher will give him another name - according to teachers perception of this talents and attitudes and that name will be with him to the end of his life. I think ZeDong is the name that was given to young Mao by his teacher (that what would normally happen). So his father is most probably not to be blame here. .

Sasha.

Reply to
Alex Chaihorsky

Hi Melinda, Mydnight,

The characters Mao Ze Dong is as what Mydnight has defined them to be.

Together, "Ze Dong" mean "To nourish, to benefit the East".

Mao is he who bring prosperity to the East.

Danny

Reply to
samarkand

So you're saying Mao Ze Dong doesn't mean "Hairy Swamp Thing Looming on The Eastern Horizon"? I sort of like that better. (Not that I have anything against Mao. Maybe I just used the wrong tone.)

Michael

samarkand42838cd1$ snipped-for-privacy@news.starhub.net.sg5/12/05 13: snipped-for-privacy@uk2.net

Reply to
Michael Plant

It's really up to your individual interpretation; you can take it to mean which ever meaning bests fits.

Or maybe it just means he was born in the eastern swamps? Ask any three Chinese people the meaning of his name, and you will get three different answers.

Sasha: The ancient naming system is a little different from your explanation above, but I haven't posted anything on it yet because I want to get a more clear explanation from my friend. It could have been that a teacher gave him the name, or it could have been that he got the name later in life after he began the revolution, which is more likely. He did come from a small farming village in Hunan where the literacy levels more than likely weren't so high (even today, they say it's like 25 percent). The likelyhood of some farmers knowing a character as complex as Ze as meaning anything other than swamp, if they knew it at all, is not so high.

And, again I say, it's speculation. Maybe nobody will ever know how he got such an elaborate, meaningful name.

Reply to
Mydnight

Midnight,

If only you know how wrong you are on the level of literacy in China poorest villages. I have on my walls contemporary calligraphy from tiny villages in Northern China, where families today are lucky if they are paid 200 a year. These scrolls may as well occupy the walls of the best world museums. And I know what I am talking about - I studied Chinese calligraphy for more than 30 years. You measure by the standards of the Western world, where educated and knowledgeable people are free to move, so you assume that they would not waste their time in poor villages. That was not true in China, Russia and many other places where family ties and government control make such movements not as usual and as obvious, as here. The situation is also different because in the same village where majority of people had very little education you could find individuals who would be worthy an evening of dialogs with Men Zi and share a bottle of wine with Li Bai. And knowledge and literacy was praised and revered by Chinese for millennia, and as such, made deep roots into simple life of a Chinese village. Unfortunately westerners mostly stay in big cities and the deeply cultured and meaningful life pf a Chinese village remains a mystery, especially because of its more than modest facade.

The ancient naming system, BTW, differ also from region to region. From epoch to epoch, from nationality to nationality within China. Your Chinese friends, depending on where they come from and how old they are may know very little of it. I was amazed how little about traditional China is known today on the streets of China. But one can be 99% sure that unless something strange happened, Mao was given his name by his teacher when he was in a middle school. He could had gotten another "party" or "revolutionary" name later, like Stalin (born Dzhugashvili) or Lenin (Ul'yanov), or almost all other Communists - very few of prominent Commies used their original names - all of them, Trotsky, Kamenev, Kirov, Ziniviev, Sverdlow, all used fake last names with an exception of Dzerzhinsky. However in Mao case, we just know from history that this was not his "revolutionary", but rather his common name.

Sasha.

Reply to
Alex Chaihorsky

I take the 1%. Mao was his family name. Zedong is his official given name, chosen at birth (probably by family).His brothers and sister (Zemin, Zetan, Zehong) also had "ze" in their given names. As you know, giving a common character to siblings of same gender used to to be common in Chinese families. An additionnal name that he got when becoming adult was Runzhi.

Kuri

Reply to
kuri

That may very well be. I am not familiar with the details of Maos young years but the fact that his siblings had the same name part does mean that they were given neceserrily by parents. In a small village where all the siblings ent to the same school over the years, village teachers would do the same "generations" character thing. The "sex" character is less common.

Sasha

Reply to
Alex Chaihorsky

That's true also Mydnight, but if he was born in the estern swamps, his name would have been very different.

Old Chinese had a complex social community system that most westerners have a peek into. The works of Pearl S Buck & Lin Yu Tang have revealed this social system to the west.

Mao was born on 16 Dec 1893. Although his parents come from an agricultural background, they were not illiterate, or at least the village elders were not, and his grandfather was a landowner who eventually sold off plots of his land in the face of poverty. But they hailed from a line of nobility, and still maintained the old fuedal naming system: each male had at least 2 names, one which is for daily calling, another which is called 'Biao Zi' in Chinese - another name which has an associated meaning to the first name. In old families, there might be a 3rd name, which is more like a title; and then there's the nickname, usually named by the mother or nanny.

Mao Ze Dong's 2nd name is 'Run Zhi' - to give moisture, to nourish; which is associated to his 1st name, 'Ze Dong' to nourish the East. A little known fact is that his family changed his 2nd name when Mao was young. When he was born, his family gave him the name 'Ze Dong' followed by the 2nd name 'Yong Zhi'. 'Yong' is to sing praise (literary, an Ode), while 'Zhi' is more multilayered which is 1) a fungus believed by chinese to promote long life (Ling Zhi); 2) Uprighteousness (The flower Lan Zhi is taken to symbolize scholarly and uprighteous gentleman). The first meaning was to imply that Mao would live a long life, as his first two siblings died in infancy, the second meaning was a reminder that their family came from a noble line. Later when Mao survived infancy, the name was changed to 'Run Zhi'.

On a side note, Mao's mother, was so fearful that Mao would not survive infancy that she carried him to a shrine dedicated to the Goddess of Mercy carved of stone near her monther's family, and bade the goddess to accept Mao as her godson, and nicknamed him 'Shi San Ya Zi' - 'The 3rd little kid of the Stone Goddess'.

Mao's father is called Mao Yi Chang - 'to give prosperity', 2nd name 'Shun Sheng' - 'without obstacles', and his 'title' was 'Liang Bi' - 'An excellent assistant'.

Thought you guys might be interested.

Danny

Reply to
samarkand

Sasha,

Agreed. Show us your calligraphy? I'm into seal carving...and have a one-sided love affair with Zhuan Shu...

Danny

Reply to
samarkand

Desperately trying to steer this thing near topic: That goddess wouldn't by any chance be Guan Yin, would she?

On topic or off, I certainly am.

/Lew

Reply to
Lewis Perin

Haha, Hi Lew, long time to hear!

Yes, that's Guan Yin...

:")

How are you...off topic...

Danny

Reply to
samarkand

"Mydnight" wrote in message news: snipped-for-privacy@g47g2000cwa.googlegroups.com...

Dear Midnight -

Leaving the discussion that you attempted to turn into a fight with a "last word" is a well known tactics. Its a little like putting your head in the sand hoping that if you said "I am done" that everyone should be too. Neither it is a particularly honest tactic, but whatever works.

And it could work, but only if that "last word" constitutes a very strong point or an argument. Yours missed the point completely. All I was saying that small and tiny poor villages in China still produce bundle of extremely well educated and knowledgeable people which is a huge contrast to poor and tiny Western communities. I used calligraphy as an example because it was considered a pinnacle of traditional Chinese education. Actually I was not even voicing my opinion but rather stating facts - I DO HAVE on my walls the unbelievable work of contemporary village calligraphers, and they ARE lucky if the get couple of hundred dollars per year. I mentioned the fact that I studied calligraphy for many years not to proclaim myself an expert on education or economics (where did youget THAT?) but to substantiate my claim on their quality. The first is a fact that anyone of you can witness by visiting my house and the second (the lever of poverty in rural China) is a publicly well-known fact. When I said you were wrong, I was talking about your particular opinion, you proclaimed me wrong about my own wall decoration.

Now about you snapping at me not being an expert. True. Very true. Never was, never claimed to be, never will. Simply because there is no such thing. I am a humble student of many things, some closer to my heart, some more distant, some just shades on the horizon. The world changes too fast for a sensible man to consider himself an expert on anything connected with human behavior. But that does not negate the facts and truths.

You definitely know a lot about China and your presence there make you a witness to many things. That said, we have also to remember that personal experience not connected with serious "book knowledge" often produces many interesting stories but seldom - insights. One of the best examples - Marco Polo's description of China where he managed not to mention Chinese calligraphic writing system, among many other things, tea among them. Many historians even question his voyage there because of this. So being a witness allows one to experience an enormous stream of information all around one. But unless one at least attempts to understand the inner language of culture, value system, beliefs and customs, one very often interprets the life around him according to one's own beliefs, symbols, etc. That is why in Russia we had a very popular proverb "Vret kak ochevidetz" - "(He/she) lies like an eye-witness". You said couple of times that you will ask your local friends opinions on these things - their answers will also have to be understood considering their value system. For instance - same example with calligraphy: It took me quite some time to discover the presence of this wonderful artists in the village. One reason was - classic arts were a very dangerous thing to know and practice during Cultural Revolution and rural communities are much less politically advanced than big cities and their memories are less easy to erase. Second - my guides were very westernized young Chinese scientists and Chinese traditional culture was not in a very high esteem in these circles. After I bought some of the artists work I was walking out and he called me back wanting to give me some of the Chinese dry ink that he makes himself. One of my guides angrily snapped at him in irritation and later attempted to give me a lecture on how old and uncontemporary and useless and stupid this whole "classical" thing was. Later I understood that these guys really wanted me to see the "industrial". "western", "contemporary" side of their country. It was not their job, like it would have been 20 years ago, it was their deep conviction that "their China" is "NewChina".

Sasha.

Reply to
Alex Chaihorsky

Depends. Most poor villages historically, Eastern, Turkish, Western, North American, had a few people who wrote letters and read letters for the illiterate (there are Anatolian letters from women weavers to their trader husbands over pricing issues and such -- the scholars who studied them don't believe the women wrote them and are not sure whether the husbands read them themselves). Scribes were fairly common in Pharonic Egypt and in Mexico in the 19th and 20th Centuries (and often in Catholic countries would be the local priests).

That a family or three is literate, even good calligraphers, in a village of 300 doesn't mean that the rest of the village can read or write. In fact, the rise of general literacy can wreck such a family's livelihood as the readers and writers of texts for the rest of the population.

It would logically follow that as more general literacy spread that the specialists in reading and writing would be less in demand and so would make less money than they might have in times when literacy was more limited.

Reply to
Rebecca Ore

It wasn't a last word or an instigation. Replying to my "last word" with paragraphs riddled with ad homium overtly calling me out isn't exactly honest either. But let's talk about honesty for a moment:

I believe the point of you stating that you had 30 years experience, proclaiming even the number of years, was to make yourself superior to me in your knowledge of Chinese culture. Did I ever say "no you do not have any sort of calligraphy on your wall"? No. When the the conversation turn to calligraphy instead of translating "mao" and "bai" anyway...when you mentioned it to elevate yourself.

Oh, sorry, let me revel in your genius and experience. But, since you are so smart, you should at least know the following:

China is a land of copying. Your calligraphy doesn't exactly have to be a work of genius because 1) it's more than likely a copy of another very famous piece exactly the same as the one (and likely hundreds of thousands of those exist around the country) you have on your walls and

2) if you are trained to write the same pieces over and over again, it doesn't constitute individual intelligence. Do you know that those "villagers" have been in that city for generations or did the farmers send their kids off to learn how to do calligraphy in the nearest big city? China is not a land of absolutes, for godsakes; the only way for you to understand what I mean, is for you to come and live here for a year or so, then you'll see.

We also have to remember that "book knowledge" coming from China or someone that has simply visited China for a period to learn about something to put in a book, can often be fallicious or embelished to make China look better depending on who they visited to collect the information. Claiming to know anything in the absolute sense in the past 50 years of China is not only wrong, it's nearly impossible. Depending on which history book you find, that will be the base of your knowledge. Now, did I proclaim myself as any particular expert in the field of Chinese things either, of course not. Do I think I am versed enough about what I'm learning to confidently post here, yes I do.

Of relating to your calligraphy and the naming system, that particular friend is a teacher of Chinese at the post graduate level. Not trying to substantiate my witness by embellishing his title or anything, but I would think he probably knows more about China than you. I keep forgetting that argument on this group is like trying to defend a thesis or book report; didn't cite my source.

I have some calligraphy of his on my wall too. He showed me some pictures of the works he was copying, and they looked identical in style and stoke pattern. Although I am not an expert in the field, I am studying Chinese, and it looks pretty good to me from my limited experience.

And, this is going to sound bad, so I apologize beforehand:

So, basically you were taken from Beijing, Nanjing, perhaps Wuhan (where ever you were) to visit some "outlying villages" where the entire economy of that village is to rip off foreigners that want to buy "Chinese things". This is one of the main reasons I haven't ventured to Beijing yet, I don't know enough local people to be able to actually see what Beijing is really like. You have your gloss and you have your reality. Most people, including Chinese, that visit these places return with glossy photographs or postcards without ever seeing the reality.

Reply to
Mydnight

Depends? Well, like everything else. Chinese, as Jews, and to a certain extent Moslems, during most of the world history were much more literate than Europeans, where non-clergical literacy untill Renessance was considered a waste of time. A medieval European village was lucky to have someone who could sign his name, while in China laymen literacy was quite normal (Balazs, Etienne. (1964). Chinese civilization and bureaucracy (H. M. Wright, Trans.). New Haven, CT: Yale University Press). Remember, the book printing in China dates back to Tang Dynasty, which preceeded European bookprinting By Gutenberg by almost a 1000 years. Between

9th and 10th centuries AD Chinese had MOVABLE printing systems, that is still 500 years before Gutenberg first experiment with static plates! It is universally accepted that without cheap printing there is no social literacy. I am quoting Wikipedia here:"As an example, in 1841(!!!) England 33% of men and 44% of women signed marriage certificates with their mark as they were unable to write." At the same time in the "Examples of highly literate cultures in the past" same article claims "The use of an ideogram based writing system makes basic literacy relatively easier to attain than the use of an alphabet based one, so it is estimated that through the more prosperous decades of her different imperial dynasties China reached very high levels of basic, functional, literacy"

Re-read the whole thread. Midnight at his message on 5/12/2005 was doubting than a poor village in South China could have a teacher (or a person) capable of knowing meanings of the character Ze. That started the whole discussion.

This is preposterious. It is the same logic that never allows Achilles to catch up with a tortoise. You are stating that the more common the literacy become, the more economically disadvantageous it is to be literate! So a South Bronx school dropout has better chances in our very highlu literate society than very literate college graduate? The truth is justthe oppoite - the more literate the socity becomes, the more jobs and professions REQUIRE literacy and the more opportinities literate peopel and families have.

Sasha.

Reply to
Alex Chaihorsky

I rest my case.

I believe the points were made quite clearly here. The rest is for the readers to judge. I will only allow myself two remarks, first being my opinion and second - to clarify my previous post:

  1. Anyone who thinks that copying of ancient masterpieces "does not constitute individual intelligence" never tried to do it himself.
  2. I am a geologist and was traveling and working in China in ex-military closed territories where there were no foreigners since 1960-ies. The people who were my guides were my younger colleagues - mostly from Chinese Geological Survey.

Sasha.

Reply to
Alex Chaihorsky

Um, from the books I've read on the subject, the Chinese tended to do static and the big advance for Gutenberg was that he used moveable type for each letter.

The other thing about Chinese literacy as well is the use of characters rather than an alphabet. This made it easier for all languages that derived from the same roots to use the same written forms but it meant that acquiring more than basic literacy was a major undertaking (unlike Cherokee with Sequoia's syllabary which was easy to learn and mapped one to one to Cherokee sounds and allowed the whole tribe to achieve something like 60% or better literacy in less than a decade, with the average learning time being something like a few months of study). Literacy with a character-based written form, just as with a near rebus-based language like Egyptian hieroglyphics, is expensive compared to an alphabet-based written form. I'd have no doubt that some people in almost every village could read some characters, even that almost everyone in some villages could read some characters, but literacy in cultures where there's an alphabet or syllabary that maps one to one with sounds rather than concepts is way easier to achieve. If my understanding is correct, Russian reformed the alphabet in 1918 or so to bring the letters more closely into correspondence with the morphemes to make learning easier.

Chinese is written so that people who speak Mandarin can write to people who speak Cantonese (and other "dialects," actually languages) even if they couldn't understand each other face to face. Maintaining the Empire was more important to the people devising the writing system than making learning to read and write easy for all Chinese.

It's why Russian for tea is chai and English for tea is tea. Different people traded with different dialect/language groups.

Reply to
Rebecca Ore

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