http://www.panasianbiz.com/all-about-china/discovery-of-genesis-chinese-c/ India, China, Japan, Bollywood, Sports, Live Cricket Streaming Fri, 06 Nov 2009 06:04:30 -0500 http://wordpress.org/?v=2.8.5 hourly 1 http://www.panasianbiz.com/all-about-china/discovery-of-genesis-chinese-c/comment-page-1/#comment-4506 James Ann Thu, 29 Jan 2009 06:40:38 +0000 http://www.panasianbiz.com/?p=3261#comment-4506 The Chinese have a story about a man called " Nu Ah " who saved the world from a huge flood by closing up the sky with seven coloured rocks. We Chinese also place RED cloth over the door frames of our houses to ward of evil. The Chinese also have a story about an ancestor call who lived to 800 years old. I've read the book and am convinced that it cannot be mere coincidence that so many words point to the Old Testamant stories. The Chinese have a story about a man called ” Nu Ah ” who saved the world from a huge flood by closing up the sky with seven coloured rocks.
We Chinese also place RED cloth over the door frames of our houses to ward of evil. The Chinese also have a story about an ancestor call who lived to 800 years old.
I’ve read the book and am convinced that it cannot be mere coincidence that so many words point to the Old Testamant stories.

]]> http://www.panasianbiz.com/all-about-china/discovery-of-genesis-chinese-c/comment-page-1/#comment-4499 Bjoern Wed, 16 Jan 2008 13:33:13 +0000 http://www.panasianbiz.com/?p=3261#comment-4499 <p>I have my doubts that this is indeed an ideographic character. "Forbidden" is pronounced "jin" today, while the two trees together (the character for forest) are pronounced "lin". It seems very likely that the "lin" hints to the sound of the character, while only the character "shi" hints to the meaning. As far as I know "shi" is not the character for "god", but rather for "altar". Since an altar was probably forbidden to the ordinary people, this seems to make sense.<br /> One always needs to be very careful reading too much into the character, even if the Chinese themselve tell you the story behind it. After all, the "shouwenjiezi", the oldest book explaining the meaning of the characters, was written approx. 1500 years after the characters were developed.<br /> A popular example for a conclusion that seems intriguing but is in fact wrong is this one: "安 - an" means "peace, peaceful, silent" and consists of the character of roof and woman. You often read that this is because Chinese belief that you should only have one woman at home to have a peaceful life or that women should be inside the house for the world to be in peace. However, the character for women, "女", which today is pronounced "nü", was also pronounced like "nan", so woman is mearly a sound component. </p> I have my doubts that this is indeed an ideographic character. “Forbidden” is pronounced “jin” today, while the two trees together (the character for forest) are pronounced “lin”. It seems very likely that the “lin” hints to the sound of the character, while only the character “shi” hints to the meaning. As far as I know “shi” is not the character for “god”, but rather for “altar”. Since an altar was probably forbidden to the ordinary people, this seems to make sense.
One always needs to be very careful reading too much into the character, even if the Chinese themselve tell you the story behind it. After all, the “shouwenjiezi”, the oldest book explaining the meaning of the characters, was written approx. 1500 years after the characters were developed.
A popular example for a conclusion that seems intriguing but is in fact wrong is this one: “安 – an” means “peace, peaceful, silent” and consists of the character of roof and woman. You often read that this is because Chinese belief that you should only have one woman at home to have a peaceful life or that women should be inside the house for the world to be in peace. However, the character for women, “女”, which today is pronounced “nü”, was also pronounced like “nan”, so woman is mearly a sound component.

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