Anton Nordenfur

January 28, 2012

Chinese idiom of the day: 不翼而飞 – to fly without wings

The idiom 不翼而飞 (búyì érfēi) is interesting not only in that the sign 翼 is extremely cool looking, but also in that it’s literal meaning is almost identical to an English idiom with a completely different meaning. The translation is “to fly without wings” (or even more literal with the proper word order, “without wings but flying”), which in an English-speaking context would equal to a derogatory comment to someone who gets ahead of himself – similar to “learn to run before you can walk”.

The Asian dragons manage to fly in spite of having no wings in many myths and traditions, but I don't think there's much of a connection to the idiom.

The Chinese meaning is quite different, however just as logical. The Chinese quite literally refer to something without wings that flies away, in other words something that vanishes very suddenly, for example a fad. It could refer to news or trends that appear and disappear very quickly, or something more permanent such as losing a possession or an unexpected death.

An aside: through a quick Google search I found a Westlife song called “Flying Without Wings“, that seems to represent something in between the Chinese idiom and the English idiom I am acquainted with. The boy band instead use the phrase to express extreme happiness, in other words metaphorically flying from happiness, even though you haven’t got any wings:

”You’ll find it in the deepest friendship
The kind you cherish all your life
And when you know how much it means
You’ve found that special thing
You’re flying without wings“

This is part five of my series on Chinese idioms, read more here or check out all previous idioms here.
If you enjoy the idioms and want to read more, please go buy Pan Weigui’s book, it’s fairly cheap and definitely worth it.

January 27, 2012

Chinese police brutality, cartoon style – 黑猫警长 review

I recently got the first season of the Chinese children’s cartoon show 黑猫警长 (Black Cat Detective), and just minutes into the first episode I was horrified by its violence.

Screenshot from s01e01. 警长 tracks down and kills the kidnapping rats.

The series basically features a black cat police detective (duh) who is biking around on his motorcycle solving crimes, primarily through shooting rats (who are evil, duh). In this first episode the Detective (警长) found the rats invading a house and kidnapping the mother of ten possums (?). Upon seeing the rats escape, the Detective does the only noble thing – points a gun at the moving car, kills one rat with a shot straight through the chest. The immediately still body of the rat is thrown of the car by his fellow rats, upon which the Detective shoots another shot at him before giving up the chase.

Later in the episode, the Detective and his cat police team hunt the rat gang down as they are messing with the kidnapped mother possum. The Detective immediately starts shooting, killing off the rats one by one.

Apparently the series has been widely critisised for its violence in the past. I still recommend it for learning Chinese (it has simple dialogue and all is subtitled in simplified Chinese), but don’t go around kidnapping possums or shooting rats.

Black March – a peaceful protest against internet censorship

Can this be done? Should we try?

January 26, 2012

Carl Sagan: “The Demon-Haunted World: Science as a Candle in the Dark”

Carl Sagan’s 1997 “The Demon-Haunted World” is a celebrated book deserving its celebration, one of the absolute best – if not the best - introductory books to scientific philosophy and skepticism for both the lay person and the academic. Throughout the 400 pages Sagan varies between discussing why certain paranormal concepts (especially ufology) is wrong, and discussing why we don’t need them in the first place – the beauty of science should be enough. Sagan postulates that science is not just a nice thing to have around for the practical technology it creates, but it is absolutely vital for our continuing survival as a species, a candle in the dark, flickering and trembling before the darkness of superstition.

Sagan puts this forth to excite the reader and make her think, while at the same time bringing both comic relief, grave seriousness and spirituality, in the agnostic way Sagan defines it. Sagan both plays with the ideas of extraterrestrial visits to Earth, and only pages later writes of the mixed emotions when facing his father’s death in a naturalistic world view.

Sagan’s final book before his 1997 death is not only a book for debunking pseudo-scientific claims (if that’s your goal, there are much better books and web sites). Much like his TV series Cosmos, “The Demon-Haunted World” is a testament both to critical thinking and to the human species and the cosmos. Sagan doesn’t look down upon the human brain for its creation of superstition and religion. He celebrates it, and he hopes it to continue its journey with science.

“I worry that, especially as the Millennium edges nearer, pseudo-science and superstition will seem year by year more tempting, the siren song of unreason more sonorous and attractive. Where have we heard it before? Whenever our ethnic or national prejudices are aroused, in times of scarcity, during challenges to national self-esteem or nerve, when we agonize about our diminished cosmic place and purpose, or when fanaticism is bubbling up around us-then, habits of thought familiar from ages past reach for the controls. The candle flame gutters. Its little pool of light trembles. Darkness gathers. The demons begin to stir.”

- Carl Sagan: “The Demon-Haunted World”

January 25, 2012

The tortoise and Achilles discusses pirate parties throughout the world

Tortoise: “But this Pirate Party thing is just a phase by naïve Swedish teens! This will pass shortly.”

Achilles: “Oh yeah? Pirate parties are currently officially registered in Austria, Belgium, Bulgaria, Canada, Croatia, Czech Republic, Denmark, Finland, France, Germany, Italy, Luxembourg, The Netherlands, Spain, Sweden, Switzerland, United Kingdom, the United States of America and Uruguay.”

Tortoise: “That few?”

Achilles: “Active but not registered parties also exist in Argentina, Australia, Belarus, Brazil, Chile, Cyprus, Croatia, Estonia, Greece, Ireland, Kazakhstan, Lithuania, Mexico, Morocco, Nepal, New Zealand, Poland, Portugal, Romania, Russia, Serbia, Slovakia, Slovenia, Turkey, Tunisia, Ukraine, and Uruguay. Oh, and there are discussions of forming a group in China, Colombia, Norway, Peru, South Korea and Venezuela.”

Tortoise: “Yeah, but… it still is just a bunch of teen jerks. It’s not like they cold enter parliament or have an effect on society or something!”

Achilles: (Looks down shamefully.) ”Yeah, I guess you’re right. The only group having an effect, really, is the Hungarian one, which is a group within the LMP party, which has 16 MP’s in parliament.”

Tortoise: “Yeah, sure, like that’s gonna have an effect.” (Expresses a derogatory smile)

Achilles: “Well, then again ofcourse there are some parties that could be considered as having at least a minor effect.”

Tortoise: (Laughs.) “Whatever do you mean?”

Achilles: “Well, apparantly the Czech Republic has three municipal councilors from their Pirate Party, and the Spanish has two. The Swedish party made 9 % in the last EU election and has two MEPs, while Switzerland has a city council seat.”

Tortoise: (Befuddled.) “Is that all then?”

Achilles: “Well ofcourse the German party did a success year 2011.”

Tortoise: (Even more befuddled than before.) ”Really?”

Achilles: “Well ofcourse. 195 municipal council seats and 15 state parliament seats in Berlin.”

Tortoise: (Is quiet for a moment as he ponders the implications of what Achilles has told him.)

Achilles: “Happy?”

Tortoise: “What is it you stand for again?”

January 24, 2012

Evolution for dummies (eller för de som helt enkelt inte tänkt så mycket på det)

Väldigt ofta stöter jag på dem som inte riktigt litar eller känner sig säkra på evolutionsteori, inte för att de egentligen är emot den eller så utan för att de helt enkelt aldrig tänkt så mycket på det, eller för att de hört att det är något skumt med den.

Faktum är att evolutionsteorin är allmänt accepterad av näst intill alla vetenskapsmän i världen, och den utgör grunden för nästan all modern biologi. Evolution används vid forskning om virus, vaccinering, genmanipulering, och hundratals andra stora områden. Det är en av de mest säkerställda idéerna inom modern historia, som blivit allt säkrare konstant under nästan tvåhundra år. Samtidigt har den ständigt överlevt alla försök att motbevisa den.

Trots detta är det många som har dålig koll på vad den faktiskt går ut på, och utöver de religiösa motståndarna så finns det en stor procent av befolkningen som inte tycker att de kan lita på biologerna i frågan. Det är helt okej – man ska inte blint följa auktoritetsfigurer. Vad man däremot ska göra är att själv analysera fakta, och se om det stämmer eller inte. Läs på. Det finns en del fantastiska böcker på området som tar upp, steg för steg, hur vi vet att evolution har skett under miljarder år och fortsätter att se. Mitt guldexempel på detta är Richard Dawkins “Så gick det till” (originaltitel “The Greatest Show on Earth”), vilken med vackra bilder och tydligt diskussion tar upp bevisen för evolution, samt tar upp specifika argument mot evolution och berättar varför de inte håller.

Och som jag sade – följ inte blint auktoritetsfigurer. När du läser en bok om evolution – oavsett om den är skriven av någon för (exempelvis Dawkins) eller någon mot (exempelvis Michael Behe) – kolla upp det du inte litar på. Dawkins har fullt med källor i sina böcker, så kolla upp dem eller gör en googlesökning. Kolla runt, finn sanningen. Det är det bästa du kan göra.

Idag upptäckte jag genom Skepchick en bra filmserie på YouTube, där evolution tas upp på ett lättsamt sätt för den som har dålig koll. Kolla!

Det här handlar trots allt om något så grundläggande som var allt liv på jorden, inklusive du och jag, kom ifrån. Det förtjänar tio minuter av din tid.

January 23, 2012

新年快乐！

新年快乐！ Happy Chinese new year!

(by jliptoid)

(by Anthony Hartman)

p3

I find myself lightly shocked whenever a woman is mentioned in the scientific literature. I had never before realised how dominated a field it is.

January 22, 2012

Paulo Coelho destroys piracy myths

Paulo Coelho, hotography by Xavier González.

Writer Paulo Coelho has yet again expressed his positive opinions on file sharing, now more than ever before, in a recent blog post.

“As an author, I should be defending ‘intellectual property’, but I’m not. Pirates of the world, unite and pirate everything I’ve ever written!”

Coelho is right on every point he makes in the post. Let’s check off the list with common piracy myths, and see what Mr. Coelho has to say.

Piracy myth #1: Books would never be written if the authors couldn’t expect to make money.

“In the former Soviet Union, in the late 1950s and 60s, many books that questioned the political system began to be circulated privately in mimeographed form. Their authors never earned a penny in royalties. On the contrary, they were persecuted, denounced in the official press, and sent into exile in the notorious Siberian gulags. Yet they continued to write.

Why? Because they needed to share what they were feeling. From the Gospels to political manifestos, literature has allowed ideas to travel and even to change the world.”

“[W]as it the desire to make money that drove me to write? No. My family and my teachers all said that there was no future in writing.”

Not Coelho's drawing, but it could as well have been.

Piracy myth #2: Piracy equals to stealing.

“When you’ve eaten an orange, you have to go back to the shop to buy another. In that case, it makes sense to pay on the spot. With an object of art, you’re not buying paper, ink, paintbrush, canvas or musical notes, but the idea born out of a combination of those products.”

Piracy myth #3: If people can download books or music for free, they won’t pay for them.

“The more often we hear a song on the radio, the keener we are to buy the CD. It’s the same with literature.

The more people ‘pirate’ a book, the better. If they like the beginning, they’ll buy the whole book the next day, because there’s nothing more tiring than reading long screeds of text on a computer screen.”

“In 1999, when I was first published in Russia ( with a print- run of 3,000), the country was suffering a severe paper shortage. By chance, I discovered a ‘ pirate’ edition of The Alchemist and posted it on my web page.
A year later, when the crisis was resolved, I sold 10,000 copies of the print edition. By 2002, I had sold a million copies in Russia, and I have now sold 12 million.”

Bravo. I couldn’t have said it better myself.

(my added bolding of the quotes)

Chinese idiom of the day: 噤若寒蝉 – as quiet as a cicada in winter

When thinking of Chinese turns of phrase or idioms, 噤若寒蝉 (jìnruòhánchán) is probably of the type that springs to mind. It literally means “as silent as a cicada in winter”. Comparisons with plants or insects (like the cikada) is fairly sterotypical of East Asian languages like Chinese and Japanese, while they’re practically non-existent in most Western languages.

The last two words (寒蝉) put together mean “a cicada in winter”, but as with many Chinese words they can mean several related things. In this case they cold also refer to the sound of cicadas in winter, as well as any mournful sound that is reminiscent of it (this is fairly common, the same is done with the sound of geese). The word 蝉 alone means “cicada”, while 寒 means something like “cold”.

The idiom is fairly clear in its meaning – to be dead quiet, for whatever reason. This especially covers being too scared to speak, for example because of hiding.

PS. Half way through the article I realised “cicada” is spelt with a C and not a K. I’m still very disappointed, cikada looks much cooler than cicada. DS.

This is part three of my series on Chinese idioms, read more here or check out all previous idioms here.
If you enjoy the idioms and want to read more, please go buy Pan Weigui’s book, it’s fairly cheap and definitely worth it.

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