Supplementary 4: Chinese culture
The influence of the Chinese culture on its language is obvious in many ways, especially in
the areas of vocabulary and discourse. Apart from lexical items expressing common notions
such as ‘human’ 人, ‘tree’ 樹, ‘clothes’ 衣服, ‘sleep’ 睡覺 etc., there are units of expression
reflecting the emphases of the culture. Some areas of Chinese culture are touched upon
below with sample or representative terms given in each section.
Food
The Chinese love life and enjoy living. For many, a good life consists of good eating. There
are many terms and expressions denoting all kinds of food and particular ways of cooking,
eating, the effects and the philosophy of eating, and so on. For example, there are more
than 20 established terms in Chinese describing how meat (normally, pork) is prepared or
cooked.
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滷肉 lu3rou4 ‘meat stewed with soy sauce’
炒肉 chao3rou4 ‘stir-fried meat’
煎肉 jian1rou4 ‘meat fried in fat or oil’
炸肉 zha4rou4 ‘deep-fried meat’
烤肉 kao3rou4 ‘roast meat’
控肉 kong4rou4 ‘meat slow-cooked in soy sauce’
扣肉 kou4rou4 ‘braised meat’
燉肉 dun1rou4 ‘stewed meat’
滑肉 hua2rou4 ‘slippery meat’
蒸肉 zheng1rou4 ‘steamed meat’
燻肉 xun1rou4 ‘smoked meat’
臘肉 la4rou4 ‘cured meat’
悶肉 men1rou4 ‘stewed meat’
煲肉 bao3rou4 ‘meat stewed in a pot’
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回鍋肉 hui2guo1rou4 ‘twice-cooked meat’
糖醋肉 tang2cu4rou4 ‘sweet and sour meat’
水煮肉 shui3zhu3rou4 ‘meat braised in hot broth’
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鹽椒肉 yan2jiao1rou4 ‘salt and pepper meat’
蔥爆肉 cong1bao4rou4 ‘meat with scallions’
咖哩肉 ka1li3rou4 ‘curried meat’
木須肉 mu4xu1rou4 ‘Moo Shu meat (shredded meat with seasoning and vegetables,
rolled in thin pancakes’
Family/ancestry
Family and ancestry are important concepts for Chinese. Children learn to be respectful of
parents and parents take care of children for life. The term 孝順 xiao4shun4 ‘be devoted
and obedient (to one’s parents)’ does not have an equivalent in English, even though
parents and children are also known to be affectionate to each other in Western society. 祖
先 zu3xian1 ‘ancestors’ is another important term, which always commands respect and
thought on the part of Chinese people. 祭拜祖先 ji4bai4 zu3xian1 ‘offer sacrifices to one’s
ancestors’ is something the Chinese regularly do to show respect to the ancestors in their
family tree. The magnitude of the ceremony is on a par with the worship of religious icons.
Religion
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On the whole, the Chinese people are not very religious. As Buddhism was the major
religion to be imported into China, it has the longest-lasting influence on Chinese
people’s lives. Buddhist temples can be seen in large quantities in China, of which 少林
寺 shao4lin2si4 ‘Shaolin Temple’ is probably the most famous. Just like temples
populating the land, a lot of Buddhist terms also made their way into the Chinese
language. For example, 菩薩心腸 pu2sa4xin1chang2 ‘Buddha heart’ is a positive phrase
to describe a very kind-hearted person or an extremely kind attitude. Most people are
only lightly touched by religion, however. Generally, Chinese people believe in the ability
of their own hard work to create a better life for themselves.
Philosophy
Again, the common philosophy of life for the Chinese people is hard work – working for
yourself, your parents and your children throughout life. The concept of ‘family’ is
constantly on their minds and directs their life decisions. A Chinese person can go overseas
to work and live in hardship so that their family at home can enjoy a better life on the
money from their higher wages sent periodically from thousands of miles away.
An important name in Chinese history is 孔子 kong3zi3 ‘Confucius’ who lived in the 5th
century BC as an educationist and politician travelling across a divided country to promote
his pro-monarchy theory. Traditionally, Confucianism has been held up as the nation’s
guiding ideology because it “advocates centralized government and the maintenance of
hierarchy” (Shi & Chen 2011, p. 30). To some extent, Confucianism still serves this function
in present day China.
Another important philosophy is Taoism (or Daoism). Two central names are those of the
thinkers 老子 ‘Laozi’ and 莊子 ‘Zhuangzi’ or collectively, 老莊 ‘Laozi and Zhuangzi’, which
are also the names of the two texts influential in this philosophy. Taoism advocates
naturalness and ‘doing nothing’ as things have their own ‘ways’ (道) of happening, regulated
by nature. Taoism reflects Chinese people’s ideal of being kind, friendly, unassertive in
interpersonal interactions and relatively impassive to public affairs, allowing themselves to
be governed by any reasonable rulers.
Literature
Classical Chinese poems are still learned in schools today, as well as being cited occasionally
in texts and daily conversation. Some poems with rhymed and paralleled verses created by
great poets such as 李白 ‘Li Bai’ from the Tang Dynasty are especially popular. The following
couplet is an excerpt from one of his poems:
天
生
我 材
必
有
用， 千
金
散
盡
還
復
來。
tian1
sheng1 wo3 cai2
bi4 you3 yong4 qian1
jin1 san4 jin4 hai2 fu4
lai2
‘heaven’ ‘produce’ ‘I’ ‘material’ ‘must’ ‘have’ ‘use’ ‘thousand’ ‘gold’ ‘spend’ ‘finish’ ‘still’ ‘repeat’ ‘come’
‘The talents I was born with must be useful in some ways. Money will be earned again after being spent’
At the other end of the literary spectrum, there are some well-received traditional novels
which have become national favorites and internationally famous, such as 西遊記 ‘Journey
to the West’, 三國演義 ‘Romance of the Three Kingdoms’, 紅樓夢 ‘Dream of the Red
Chamber’ and so on. English translations of many such novels are available.
Politics
China had been ruled by emperors and warlords until the last monarch was overthrown in
1911, upon which China may have developed gradually into a full-fledged democratic
country if it had not fallen into the hands of the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) in 1949.
Today, the big star on China’s national flag shows the unquestionable and unchallengeable
sovereignty of the CCP over China. This political monopoly is reassured through education,
media and information control, and crackdown on any sign of democratic movement.
Taiwan
The government of Taiwan represents the political party (i.e. the Nationalist Party, or KMT)
which led the revolution in 1911 that overthrew the Qing Dynasty. The life of the Republic of
China (ROC) began in 1912, which was the first year in the country’s independent calendar,
the 中華民國紀年 ‘calendar of the ROC’. This is still the official calendar system in Taiwan.
Thus, Taiwan year 103, or 中華民國 103 年 ‘year 103 of the ROC’, is converted to year 103 +
1911 = 2014 in the Western calendar.
The KMT (or 國民黨), after being defeated by the CCP in 1949 and relocating to Taiwan,
initially ruled by a one-party authoritarian system just like the current CCP in China.
However, with a series of successful democratic movements from the grassroots, a strong
opposition party, the Democratic Progressive Party (民主進步黨), was established in 1986,
and the first direct presidential election took place in 1996. From then, Taiwan has become
a fully democratic country with a multiparty electoral system, a parliament (called the
Legislative Yuan) with elected members of parliament, free information flows and free
speech.
Communications between the two sides of the Taiwan Strait have become increasingly
frequent in recent years due to the recent open policy of China and the need of Taiwanese
people to seek entrepreneurial opportunities in the mainland. There was a period of some
30 years, however, in which there were few interactions between Taiwan and China. The
Chinese languages evolved independently in both regions during this period, which resulted
in some dramatic differences, especially in terms of the pronunciation of Mandarin and the
vocabulary.
In Taiwan, Mandarin was made the official language after the KMT set up the government in
1949. The phonetic system used in Taiwan to teach Mandarin, called Zhuyin fuhao (注音符
號) or simply Zhuyin, dates back to 1913 when the KMT was still in power in China. Zhuyin
looks different from the Pinyin system introduced by the government of China in 1958.
Table 0.3 contrasts the symbols used in both systems.
Table 0.3: The Zhuyin and Pinyin symbols for the consonants and vowels used in Mandarin
Consonants
Zhuyin ㄅ
ㄆ
ㄇ
ㄈ ㄉ ㄊ ㄋ ㄌ ㄍ ㄎ ㄏ
ㄐ ㄑ ㄒ
Pinyin
b
p
m
f
d
t
n
l
g
k
h
j
q
x
Zhuyin ㄓ
ㄔ
ㄕ
ㄖ ㄗ ㄘ ㄙ ㄧ ㄨ ㄩ
Pinyin zh
ch
sh
r
z
c
s
y
w
yu
Vowels
Zhuyin ㄚ
ㄛ
ㄜ
ㄝ
ㄞ ㄟ ㄠ ㄡ ㄢ ㄣ ㄤ
ㄥ
ㄦ
Pinyin
a
o
e
e
ai
ei
au ou an en ang eng er
Note: The semivowels ㄧ, ㄨ and ㄩ are used both as consonants and as vowels
Initially, Zhuyin may seem difficult and an extra burden to learn. However, once the symbols
are learned with the correct phonetic associations made, the subsequent learning of
Mandarin syllables, phrases and sentences are made easier than that with Pinyin (See Flynn
2010, for example).
Because of the influence of the Southern Min dialect widely spoken in Taiwan, the
pronunciation of some Mandarin sounds may be slightly different between a Taiwanese and
a mainland speaker. For example, some Taiwanese speakers may pronounce the retroflex
sounds zh, ch and sh not very differently from their non-retroflex counterparts z, c and s,
and the vowel eng may be pronounced only slightly differently from en. However, the
phonetic differences are negligible on the whole and generally do not affect communication
so long as both parties are using standard Mandarin.
Another noticeable difference between mainland and Taiwanese Chinese is in
thevocabulary, as a result of four decades of non-communication between the two parties.
For example, when the personal computer became available from the 1970s, it was called
電腦 ‘electric brain’ in Taiwan but 計算機 ‘calculating machine’ in China. Nowadays, both
terms are used by mainlanders but the Taiwanese have never called a computer a
‘calculating machine’. More examples of common vocabulary differences are shown in Table
0.4 below.
Table 0.4: Examples of differences in vocabulary between mainland and Taiwanese Chinese
for the same items
English
potato
pineapple
tomato
instant
noodles
bus
platform
(train
station)
taxi
take a cab
Taiwanese
馬鈴薯
鳳梨
蕃茄
泡麵
mainland
土豆
波萝
西红柿
方便面
English
director
police
restaurant
boxed lunch
Taiwanese
主管
員警
餐廳
便當
mainland
领导
公安
食堂
盒饭
公車
月臺
公交
站台
lavatory
software
洗手間
軟體
卫生间
软件
計程車
搭計程車
出租车
打车
Sydney
New Zealand
雪梨
紐西蘭
悉尼
新西兰
Note there are also vocabulary items which exist on one side but not the other. For example,
失獨 ‘lose only (child)’ is not a lexical term in Taiwan and cannot be easily comprehended
there, until one realizes that there are potentially a large number of older people in China
who have lost their only child and become childless due to the one-child birth control policy.
失獨家庭 ‘losing a single child family’ and 失獨老人 ‘losing a single child old persons’ are
thus common terms in China but not so in Taiwan. Conversely, 檳榔西施 ‘betel nut beauty’
(a woman wearing revealing clothes selling betel nuts to motorists as refreshments on
roadside) is a phenomenon particular to Taiwan which mainlanders will not be familiar with
unless they have visited Taiwan. 立委 ‘member of parliament’ is not a popular term in
mainland China as there is no such mechanism there. 城管 ‘urban management officer’, on
the other hand, is not a familiar term to Chinese speakers in Taiwan as no equivalent posts
exist there.