western journalists in china love to talk about the mandate of heaven
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i think a lot abt how early translation choices affected western views of china like. mandate of heaven is pretty lit but some fixation w it has to do w translation of 天 as heaven i think. like "all under heaven" man 天下 is a casual ass term. same as "everything under the sun"
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(sage nod) ah yes and then i picked up the "thing", the "east-west" as the ancients called it, so named because of the elements of feng shui in the oracle bones, and i said wow, this room is truly "messy seven, eight spoiled", another aphorism dating back to the han dynasty
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Point taken, but I think the weight of the term comes from 命. Like how else would you translate it, destined right to rule? So lame
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i mean yes the it's a legitimately weighty concept but i think if they'd translated it as "right to rule" it wouldn't have held this whole persistent exotic vibe. in general "heaven" in english carries way too many connotations from christianity to be a good translation of 天
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i think about this when they translate 中国 as "middle kingdom" but 美国 as "beautiful country". same character, much different translation connotations
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Yes, and 天 also literally translates to "Sky". So it is "everything under the sun/sky" really.
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the loss of the mandate of heaven is a crisis/opportunity
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“3Q” for “thank you” does make you think English overcomplicates things. After a basic overview of English linguistics, the beta user’s 1st question can only be: ‘fckn why is that how you spell “the” ?’
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