In general, I think of myself as pretty familiar with Chinese culture. But it was not until I read a Chinese online novel in the last few years that I learnt the following (you never know what you would learn randomly with novels!): in ancient days, there was no such thing as punctuation in Chinese! I’m not sure when did punctuation first come into use in China- I Googled it but the closest information seemed to indicate that in the Song dynasty (960-1279 AD), punctuation marks were still not a standard in Chinese. That is, only occasionally there would be marks printed to indicate breaks in the text and different marks were used between two different texts (but I wonder if the two examples cited were in fact spaced quite far apart from each other in time).
Anyway, what does this mean in practice? That ancient texts have to be read with ‘interpretations from others’, leading to controversy over the meaning of the sometimes the exact same sentence within the exact same text.
A famous example (and also the one described in the online novel I read) was over a ten character sentence said by Conficius recorded in the Analects, essentially a compilation of speeches by Conficius and his disciples. For ease, I’m just going to put down the Mandarin pinyin for this controversial sentence over how to deal with the populace/civilians:
Min ke shi yong zhi bu ke shi zhi zhi
According to the Chinese Wikipedia, there are 5 variants of how you can break up this sentence with punctuation, now creating slightly different meanings!
Variant 1: Min ke shi yong zhi, bu ke shi zhi zhi
Meaning: Sometimes it’s necessary to only let the populace/civilians follow directions without letting them know about the rationale behind the directives
Variant 2: Min ke, shi yong zhi, bu ke, shi zhi zhi
Meaning: If the populace have a good grasp, then leave them be. If the populace do not have a proper handle, then educate them.
Variant 3: Min ke shi, yong zhi, bu ke shi, zhi zhi
Meaning: If the populace can be utilised, then let them follow orders. If the populace cannot be utilised, then let them be understanding/rational.
Variant 4: Min ke shi, yong zhi bu ke, shi zhi zhi
Meaning: If the populace can be utilised, then you cannot just leave them be, you have to educate them.
Variant 5: Min ke shi yong zhi? bu. ke shi zhi zhi
Meaning: Can you leave the populace be? No. They need to be educated.
That is my little share for today. In May, I personally look forward to getting back in track with my writing and then in general, a continual improvement in the Coronavirus situation.
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