western journalists in china love to talk about the mandate of heaven
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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
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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But also think of phrases like 人在做天在看. Given the limits of cultural translation I think it's the best they could do without invoking a godawful metaphysical mess
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this is a good point. translation of tian into heaven is actually the work of jesuit scholars from the 17th century who came to china as missionaries. not the most informed translation
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