Official Bored at Work / Off-Topic Chat Thread II

[Raydeus]

Re: Official Bored at Work / Off-Topic Chat Thread II

He is probably referring to the use of Simplified Chinese. You know, the official commie language (dun dun dunnnn)






But I could be very wrong, because I have no idea what you guys are talking about.

[Mezlo]

Re: Official Bored at Work / Off-Topic Chat Thread II

That could be it Ray. My wife made a shirt, which i think looks really cool, but I don't know what character was picked from what language, i guess according to Feba it is simplified Chinese. Don't Chinese and Japanese share the same symbols, or am I wrong? I would've thought she would've picked a Japanese symbol.

[Taskmage]

Re: Official Bored at Work / Off-Topic Chat Thread II

Ok, took me about five minutes of research to figure it out. First read this from the wikipedia article on love in Chinese and Sinic cultures:

Two philosophical underpinnings of love exist in the Chinese tradition, one from Confucianism which emphasized actions and duty while the other came from Mohism which championed a universal love. A core concept to Confucianism is Ren ("benevolent love", 仁), which focuses on duty, action and attitude in a relationship rather than love itself. In Confucianism, one displays benevolent love by performing actions such as filial piety from children, kindness from parent, loyalty to the king and so forth.

The concept of Ai (愛) was developed by the Chinese philosopher Mozi in the 4th century BC in reaction to Confucianism's benevolent love. Mozi tried to replace what he considered to be the long-entrenched Chinese over-attachment to family and clan structures with the concept of "universal love" (jiān'ài, 兼愛). In this, he argued directly against Confucians who believed that it was natural and correct for people to care about different people in different degrees. Mozi, by contrast, believed people in principle should care for all people equally. Mohism stressed that rather than adopting different attitudes towards different people, love should be unconditional and offered to everyone without regard to reciprocation, not just to friends, family and other Confucian relations. Later in Chinese Buddhism, the term Ai (愛) was adopted to refer to a passionate caring love and was considered a fundamental desire. In Buddhism, Ai was seen as capable of being either selfish or selfless, the latter being a key element towards enlightenment.

In contemporary Chinese, Ai (愛) is often used as the equivalent of the Western concept of love. Ai is used as both a verb (e.g. wo ai ni 我愛你, or "I love you") and a noun (such as aiqing 愛情, or "romantic love"). However, due to the influence of Confucian Ren, the phrase ‘Wo ai ni’ (I love you) carries with it a very specific sense of responsibility, commitment and loyalty.

Ok, now check out this image I found on flickr (LOVE CHARACTER IN CHINESE AND JAPANESE | Flickr - Photo Sharing!). Regrettably I can't embed it without an annoying amount of work due to copyright protections, so just pull it up in a tab. In the middle of the Chinese phrase on the top left is the symbol for love. Notice that in the center of the character is the symbol for heart, which is isolated on the top right of the image. The character your wife used is the simplified character shown in the chart on the bottom right, which leaves out the heart symbol, which kindof strips out the emotional meaning and reverts it to the "duty towards others" reading.

Now, I see that she added a western heart to the design, which you might think would counteract that, but for someone who's familiar with Chinese characters, that might not be the case.

[Mezlo]

Re: Official Bored at Work / Off-Topic Chat Thread II

Now, I see that she added a western heart to the design, which you might think would counteract that, but for someone who's familiar with Chinese characters, that might not be the case.

Gold star for TM!!!!

And wow, good job by the wifey! I like her addition of the "Western" heart! Nice touch for sure. I married up...

[Yygdrasil]

Re: Official Bored at Work / Off-Topic Chat Thread II

So Mezlo didn't marry a communist? That would have been far more amusing.

[Taskmage]

Re: Official Bored at Work / Off-Topic Chat Thread II

I'm confused by the forcefully exuberant response to me explaining what would probably be considered a mistake, but ok.

[Raydeus]

Re: Official Bored at Work / Off-Topic Chat Thread II

Finally found out where this song came from. I had it stuck in my head all day and I just couldn't remember which song it was.

[Feba]

Re: Official Bored at Work / Off-Topic Chat Thread II

Yes, that's a Chinese character, not Japanese. I'll get back to that in a second, but compare:

愛　爱

The one on the left is traditional, and as Taskmage's post pointed out, contains 心, "heart". The one on the right doesn't really revert to the meaning of "duty"; but it does replace that 'heart' with 友, "friend".

As to Japanese/Chinese using the same script, well, yes and no. Of course, Japanese has Hiragana and Katakana, which Chinese generally doesn't (formal Mandarin would never use it, however former Japanese colonial areas might show some very minor use. For example, in Taiwan, the Japanese grammatical particle の is often written as an abbreviation of Mandarin 的, which serves essentially the same role. In Taiwanese, パン is sometimes spotted on signs, instead of or alongside the Taiwanese ㄆㄤ.)

As to the actual Chinese characters themselves, Tradtional Chinese, Simplified Chinese, and Japanese all use somewhat different character sets (there are also variant/handwritten forms that exist in various regions, and wouldn't be used in others, but putting that aside...). For example, in simplified Chinese, the 言 left side radical is simplified as follows: è¯ è¯ 讲; essentially replacing four dots and a mouth with a dot and a line. Japanese does not use this simplification. On the other hand, traditional Chinese 會 is simplified to 会 in both Chinese and Japanese.

Essentially, Japanese adopted Chinese hundreds of years ago, and naturally simplified simply hadn't come about by then. The reason there are some simplifications, but not others, are due to Japanese reform, which came about independently of Chinese reform. This leads to cases where the Japanese and Chinese used different simplifications, and you get fun stuff like the following:

圖書館
図書館
图书馆

All three of these are the same word; "Toshokan" in Japanese, Tushuguan in Mandarin, translating as "Library [Building]". The first one is traditional Chinese, the second one is Japanese, the third one is simplified. Japanese simplifications tend to be based more on handwriting abbreviations than radical attempts to reduce stroke counts, which makes them not go so far as the Chinese ones, although they do tend to be significantly easier to write than traditional characters.

There's nothing wrong with the shirt, really, unless she intended it to be Japanese. It's just communist ヽ(｀△´)/

[Armando]

Re: Official Bored at Work / Off-Topic Chat Thread II

Was browsing the webs on Firefox and accidentally hit Ctrl+Shift+I. A toolbar I've never seen before appeared at the bottom of the window, with a button labeled "3D View." Pushed it. Became bewildered.

[cidbahamut]

Re: Official Bored at Work / Off-Topic Chat Thread II

It's like finding easter eggs in my computer games all over again, only it feels like an application crash.

[Taskmage]

Re: Official Bored at Work / Off-Topic Chat Thread II

I can't agree with this and I can't articulate why.

[Armando]

Re: Official Bored at Work / Off-Topic Chat Thread II

I can't agree with this and I can't articulate why.

Which part of it?

[DakAttack]

Re: Official Bored at Work / Off-Topic Chat Thread II

Was browsing the webs on Firefox and accidentally hit Ctrl+Shift+I. A toolbar I've never seen before appeared at the bottom of the window, with a button labeled "3D View." Pushed it. Became bewildered.

[Omgwtfbbqkitten]

Re: Official Bored at Work / Off-Topic Chat Thread II

Apparently in FPS Russia, the fridge nukes you.

Seriously, though, I hope that camera man is OK. I think Mr. FPS Russia there might be a bit of trouble on workplace injuries.

[Taskmage]

Re: Official Bored at Work / Off-Topic Chat Thread II

Checked his facebook feed and he had a picture of the wound up. Apparently a fairly small piece of shrapnel hit the guy in the leg. Only six stitches to close it up but it went to the bone.