Talk:Chinese word for "crisis"

Busybodies at work

This article is the work of a group of busybodies more interested in aggrandizing their petty understanding of polysemy than to contribute anything of value to our understanding of intercultural communication. The claim made by the authors is that the second term, ji, is polysemic and thus interpreting it as "opportunity" is wrong. By definition, polysemy implies multiple meanings. If the polysemic halo of ji includes opportunity, then the interpretation for the characters as danger and opportunity remains valid. You cannot say that something is a "misinterpretation" of polysemy if that something refers to one possible meaning of the polysemic halo of a term. Like the fashionable "fact-checking" popping up from every corner nowadays, which seems to be more interested in defending or spinning various possible explanations for rather complex issues, matters of interpretation are turned into matters of fact. The goal of this particular game of smoke and mirrors seems to find the writers something to boast about. This is a form of intellectual "Kilroy was here." But who ever claimed that Wikipedia is not a sounding board for unpraised selves?

--108.160.205.127 (talk) 17:35, 26 May 2021 (UTC)

Not a language expert?

But the only question that springs to mind:

Is the term "crisis equals opportunity" common parlance, anywhere in China. If not, then it fails the test as a representative quote of Chinese thought, a misrepresentation that should include proper attribution, as it does here.

If you have sourced counter-facts, let's have 'em :) Jasonbrown1965 (talk) 03:38, 8 April 2022 (UTC)

To call this a "controversy" is incorrect

As a (self-proclaimed) linguist, I think it is fair to say that:

1. The word 危机 weiji/kiki was NOT coined to mean 'danger & opportunity'. It was coined to mean 'dangerous juncture'. I suspect it was coined by the Japanese to translate 'crisis'. (I might add that this statement is rather off the mark: "The controversy is mostly due to differing interpretations of how much optimism should be associated with the character 機." The problem is the meaning and etymology of the word 危机, not the amount of "optimism" associated with the character.)

2. Somebody (not necessarily an English speaker, quite possibly a Chinese or Japanese) noticed that 危机 could be analysed into 'danger' 危险 and 'opportunity' 机会. This was no doubt a very attractive analysis for motivational pep talks.

3. The new interpretation spread into English, and is now also common both in Japanese and Chinese (I can speak with authority for the Chinese, because my native-speaking Chinese boss used this analysis just the other day in a talk with business partners).

It is kind of ridiculous to call this a 'controversy'. The facts are clear enough. The analysis is erroneous. That is the end of the story. The interpretation of 危机 as being a combination of 'danger' and 'opportunity' is a kind of folk etymology.

But that does not mean that this is not a good motivational example. It is a novel way of analysing the word that beautifully highlights a fundamental truth -- a time of crisis is also a time of opportunity.

That is how the article should be written; not as a "controversy", but as the reinterpretation of a word's etymology to make a particular point. 202.175.171.243 05:04, 20 March 2006 (UTC)

The more fundamental problem with the article is that it doesn't properly explain the issue at all.--Jack Upland 01:46, 16 April 2006 (UTC)

Indeed. I have no idea what the problem is. Don't the individual characters actually mean that in hanzi (Chinese)? If not, what do they actually mean? Zyxoas (talk to me - I'll listen) 21:34, 15 July 2006 (UTC)

I don't know Chinese, but, having followed the links in the article, I think the point is this. The root meaning is that, in a crisis, the danger has the opportunity (chance) to happen. It does not mean that a crisis is an opportunity (in the positive, up-beat sense) for the person experiencing it. --Sir Myles na Gopaleen (the da) 11:00, 27 September 2006 (UTC)

Kind of like the word risk, which is "down-beat" in English but doesn't have to be. And I agree with the above point that being a folk etyology doesn't make something totally "false". Otherwise, one is confusing the word with the thing. So an honest motivational speaker might say something like, "If I invented a language, the word for "crisis" would reflect this unsupported folk etymology." Just so people aren't misinformed about the facts even as they digest the platitudes. --Lenoxus 18:00, 8 February 2007 (UTC)

Simpsons

Is it worth mentioning that this false notion has been used in The Simpsons, referred to by Homer as a 'crisitunity'?

Sounds appropriate. Done. --Arcadian 22:12, 11 November 2006 (UTC)

Looks like its since been removed from the article. An "In popular culture" section should take care of it. Morganfitzp (talk) 16:37, 23 January 2019 (UTC)

Title is inaccurate and misleading

• This article is not about a translation into Chinese, as the title now implies.
• It is about our misinterpretation of the Chinese term.
• The word crisis in this title is presently unclear; is this about a crisis, or about the word crisis?

Suggestions for renaming this article:

• Translation of the Chinese word Crisis
• Translation of the Chinese word Weiji (Crisis)
• Appropriation of the Chinese word Weiji (Crisis)

Woodlandpath 16:53, 30 March 2007 (UTC)

There may be too many external links to this article to consider changing the title.

Woodlandpath 01:32, 31 March 2007 (UTC)

"It is about our misinterpretation of the Chinese term."

Can I further suggest that the weight of the page is about our (western) misattribution of the phrase "opportunity equals opportunity" and that the page title should quote, well, that?

" There may be too many external links to this article to consider changing the title."

Isn't that an auto-direct? Jasonbrown1965 (talk) 03:56, 8 April 2022 (UTC)

Do we really need this article?

• I'm not sure we really need this article in Wikipedia. If we do keep the article, I don't think it should be titled Chinese translation of crisis. The title implies that the Chinese word is based on English in some way, which is not true. The second problem with the article is that the "danger" and "opportunity" explanation is not necessarily a result of misinterpretation by English speakers. This same exact explanation is routinely offered in Chinese.[1][2][3] Did the misinterpretation in Chinese originally come from the English misinterpretation? It's possible, but I doubt it. As mentioned in the article, the second syllable can mean a number of things. The original intended meaning for the second syllable is critical or important (as pointed out in the article). However, the term also can mean opportunity, when part of other words. In other words, its double meaning is exploited in Chinese; as a result, we have the "danger" and "opportunity" bit. However, the English explanation is more likely a reflection of the line of reasoning (the double meaning) in Chinese, rather than a blatant misinterpretation. Finally, the English explanation of the Chinese term for crisis may be known to a certain section of the Western world, but I doubt that many non-Chinese speakers have ever seen or heard the term weiji. -- A-cai 08:57, 25 September 2007 (UTC)

All good points, many of them made above. The title really should be changed to "The Chinese word for 'Crisis'".

Bathrobe 09:46, 25 September 2007 (UTC)

Yes, I think WP needs this interesting article, and yes, the title should be changed. The Chinese lexicon having several "crisis" words (e.g., wēijī, nánguān, jíbiàn) rules out titles like:

• Translation of the Chinese word Crisis
• The Chinese word for Crisis

That leaves potential titles like:

• Translation of the Chinese word Weiji (Crisis)
• Appropriation of the Chinese word Weiji (Crisis)

Would it be better to use something akin to "Mistranslation" or "Misappropriation"? Should the title be shortened with "… of Chinese Weiji (Crisis)"? Keahapana 22:20, 29 September 2007 (UTC)

• My suggestions would be:

• Folk etymology of the Chinese word weiji
• False etymology of the Chinese word weiji

• I would not label it a mistranslation, because weiji is indeed translated as crisis in English. It is an example of folk etymology or false etymology. However, I don't believe that the incorrect etymology has anything to do with its migration into English. Rather, it is most likely an example of false etymology within the Chinese language itself. -- A-cai 22:43, 29 September 2007 (UTC)

• Yes, Good suggestions. Since this is a false rather than a folk etymology, how about "False etymology of the Chinese word weiji" or "False etymology of Chinese weiji (crisis)"? History shows that Western missionaries are to blame for this crisis = opportunity mistake (1938 Chinese Recorder). These three recent Chinese examples apparently came through English. The first quotes Nixon's China speech and the third is written by a doctor who graduated from an American university. Keahapana 00:57, 3 October 2007 (UTC)

I still feel that "The Chinese word for 'crisis'" is fine as a title. First, while there are a number of possible words that equate to 'crisis' in English, the standard, kneejerk translation used in expressions like 'crisis management' is 危机. Secondly, the way that the etymology is usually presented is as "the Chinese word for crisis". That means that anyone interested in this subject is first going to look for "the Chinese word for 'crisis'". Thirdly, a simple title should be chosen over a more complicated title. Referring to weiji in the title will only confuse people who know the etymology but not the word (the vast majority of English-speakers, I would suspect), and referring to 'false etymologies' in the title doesn't add anything important. (I mean, are we going to have two articles, one about "The false etymology of the Chinese word for 'crisis'" and another about "The Chinese word for 'crisis'"? Then what does "false etymology" add?)

Bathrobe 01:22, 3 October 2007 (UTC)

Loanword

I've zapped this:

The Chinese word weiji (危機 translated as "crisis") is one of the few Chinese words to enter the English lexicon directly as a borrowed term, or loanword.

It's not a loanword. I've never heard or seen weiji used in English. It's not listed in any online English dictionary. jnestorius^(talk) 12:49, 12 December 2007 (UTC)

References

Kofi Annan

Kofi Annan repeated this trope in a press conference in Nairobi, 15 February 2008 ~17:30 UTC+3. (KTN broadcast). Just noting this, the article probably has enough examples; but this is another very notable person using it. Robert Ullmann (talk) 14:46, 15 February 2008 (UTC)

A "notable usage" section seems like a good idea. Morganfitzp (talk) 16:39, 23 January 2019 (UTC)

Move

People have brought up moves before, but it looks like nothing has been acted on. I think the article should be moved to Chinese word for "crisis". Someone above raised the good point that Chinese has other words for crisis, but this is the one that's notable in the English-speaking community (since this is the one that the common pop-culture rhetorical device refers to) and the only one likely to be searched for on en-wiki. There can be redirects to this from other titles such as Weiji and Chinese word "weiji". Politizer ^talk/_contribs 20:45, 15 January 2009 (UTC)

If the Chinese use it...

I was just listening to the BBC World Service, where a high-ranking member of the Chinese Foreign Ministry! just told me:

"In Chinese, 'crisis' is made of two characters: danger and opportunity."

Hmm, I thought. Check it out. And here this terrible article says it's a folk fallacy!

Since the article itself tries to prove this by saying the second character in weiji doesn't mean "opportunity," but then immediately contradicts itself by saying, "it could mean...opportune, opportunity..." isn't this the real fallacy on this web page?

This page should be deleted. Completely useless and doesn't even bother to find a single Chinese source! Imagine Chinese telling Michael Jackson, "Actually sir, 'bad' doesn't necessarily mean 'good or cool!'"118.7.154.170 (talk) 03:02, 4 February 2009 (UTC)

Please look at the sources we have. They acknowledge that the folk fallacy has become so popular/ingrained that even Chinese speakers use it.

Being a native speaker of a language doesn't automatically make you an expert in that language's etymologies and history. There are plenty of English speakers who don't really understand the English language, and the same with Chinese speakers and the Chinese language. Politizer ^talk/_contribs 03:14, 4 February 2009 (UTC)

I am a chinese, and while we are aware of this "interpretation", this interpretation only come from western source(yes we can read english so we are aware of it), there is no chinese source that cite this interpretation unless they take it from an english source. the word for crisis simply mean "Dangerous moment". Moment can mean opportunity if it is compound in the way as listed in the article. 202.156.10.11 (talk) 14:38, 27 July 2011 (UTC)

The Victor Mair show?

The article as written could have been retitled "Victor Mair's opinion regarding..." I have removed some of the non-NPOV language, attributed the viewpoints to those who hold them, and tried to provide some balance. μηδείς (talk) 19:32, 18 May 2011 (UTC)

I didn't notice your message yesterday, so apologies for not responding sooner. Anyway, I've undone this set of edits pending further discussion. As for the issue of whether "crisis = danger + opportunity" is used by Chinese speakers as well, you haven't really provided evidence for that; Zhang Daolong's quotation is just one person, and it doesn't actually say "The word 危机 means danger plus opportunity"; rather, I read that quote as him making a pun (probably motivated by the meme English speakers use) to the effect of "A crisis is looking for opportunity during danger". It may seem like I'm splitting hairs, but Zhang isn't making any claims about etymology there. And there are other sources, although not necessarily reliable (e.g. this) claiming that most Chinese people don't believe the "danger + opportunity" thing.

As for the issue of whether the sources cited currently are sufficient to demonstrate that "crisis = danger + opportunity" is a fallacy.... First of all, Victor Mair is a widely recognized scholar in Chinese philology and is certainly a more authoritative source in this matter than Zhang Daolong (I have no idea who that is, although I assume he's a politician or technocrat, based on the link you gave). The article also cites other sources that agree with him (e.g., posts from Ben Zimmer); this page that I linked above also cites another scholar who makes the same argument. And someone like you or me who has even basic knowledge of Chinese knows that it's silly to say that 危机 means "danger + opportunity" just because it has 机 in it; no one would say 飞机 means "flight + opportunity", because 机 does not mean opportunity. rʨanaɢ (talk) 19:53, 18 May 2011 (UTC)

I am not arguing the facts of the analysis, I am trying to balance the article and make the wording NPOV. I will delete the reference to Zhang Daolong (my browser said Zhangdao Long) since I cannot verify who he is, other than perhaps an MD from Chicago. However respected Mair is, we do not need the article using the word fallacy as if it is fact when neutral words will do. And if you read Zimmer you will see that his opinion of the matter is derived directly from Mair's very own paper, not an independent analysis. μηδείς (talk) 20:00, 18 May 2011 (UTC)

I don't think it's POV to report something as incorrect if all the consensus among all the reliable sources suggests that it is so. (Take, for instance, articles on known pseudosciences like phrenology.) Unless there are reliable sources arguing that it is not a fallacy, I don't see a problem with calling it one. (The closest I can find is this defunct website; haven't figured out yet who the author is, and to me the arguments look pretty speculative anyway.) As for the Zimmer post, I'm aware that he's basically just citing Mair's opinion, but I assume he wouldn't be doing so (and adopting it wholeheartedly to basically criticize people who use the meme) if he didn't agree. rʨanaɢ (talk) 20:08, 18 May 2011 (UTC)

(out) I'm ok with pretty much all of your latest edit, except I still disagree with the removal of "fallacious" for the reasons I mentioned above. And in any case, I think there should be some wording similar to that in the lede (perhaps it could be moved to the last sentence, making something like "Some western linguists consider this a fallacy, arguing that...") because, to be honest, I'm not sure if most readers of this article will know what "false etymology means"--at least, not enough for them to realize the argument is that the whole thing is incorrect. Given that that's what pretty much the entire article is about, I think it should pop out even for readers who aren't familiar with linguistic jargon (which I assume most people coming to this article are not). rʨanaɢ (talk) 20:13, 18 May 2011 (UTC)

I was unhappy with false etymology and think your suggestion works perfectly, I will make the change. μηδείς (talk) 20:18, 18 May 2011 (UTC)

I think that looks better, too. Thanks for your help! rʨanaɢ (talk) 22:11, 18 May 2011 (UTC)

:) μηδείς (talk) 22:16, 18 May 2011 (UTC)

Moved from article

I moved the below to the talk page, because while it is interesting it appears to be non-encyclopaedic (and I prefer not to delete it.) -- GlennWillen _______________________

Troy's Thoughts:

A conceptual understanding of both languages would reveal that while "crisis" and "opportunity" appear to be radically different ideas, both can be expressed by the single concept of "circumstances call for immediate action".

In the English language, seperate, different words are used that, on their own, describe what type of circumstances, and what types of action are warranted, however, other languages can carry a more generalized idea, and meaning is derived from context.

For clarity:

Though a hurricane is defined as a crisis, and free money is defined as an opportunity, the basic idea behind both is that they are certain circumstances that requre immediate action. The negative or positive connotation is derived from the context. {{subst:Unsigned|

Chinese perspectives?

All of the linguists and politicians cited in this article are Westerners. The article could really benefit from native Chinese speakers' perspectives. Morganfitzp (talk) 16:10, 30 November 2012 (UTC)

#A native speaker's thought and digging. --Tomchen1989 (talk) 21:50, 14 August 2019 (UTC)

Lists of meanings for wēi and jī

In the section Public mistranslation, I marked the following statements with the Cite quote template:

wēi …roughly translates to mean: "danger, dangerous; endanger, jeopardize; perilous; precipitous, precarious; high; fear, afraid"…

these can form words such as "machine, mechanical; airplane; suitable occasion; crucial point; pivot; incipient moment; opportune, opportunity; chance; key link; secret; cunning"

noting in my edit comments that if the lists are not directly quoted from another source, discrete items should be surrounded by double quotes, following convention in the rest of the article.

Unfortunately, comment space prohibited mention of an important point. Both lists include meanings that do not appear in the sources cited (e.g., "jeopardize"; "key link"). I checked all reachable online sources. —Shelley V. Adams 13:16, 7 October 2013 (UTC)

Big overhaul

Over a decade after this article's creation, we have amassed significant examples of the "Chinese word for 'crisis'" from political, linguistic, pop culture and globalist perspectives to make this article into something far more comprehensive and less didactic than what exists at the moment. I am up for the task, am looking for native Chinese speaking collaborators. Any takers? Morganfitzp (talk) 16:48, 23 January 2019 (UTC)

Feel free to add more significant examples. But don't be obssessed with it, it's not a good idea to convince or motivate people with it, it's indeed a mistranslation after all. --Tomchen1989 (talk) 21:50, 14 August 2019 (UTC)

On Chinese Wikipedia

The current Chinese Wikipedia article for "crisis" is unsourced, but nonetheless interesting to this discussion, especially when run through Google Translate. It's unsourced:

The crisis ( English: Crisis ) is a moment of danger and opportunity . It is a moment for testing decision-making and problem- solving ability. It is a turning point in life, group and social development . It is a matter of life and death, interest transfer, and like a fork . There is a saying: "Crisis is a turning point."

Not sure what to do with this, but it interesting. Morganfitzp (talk) 17:38, 23 January 2019 (UTC)

Read the section #A native speaker's thought and digging I wrote. The current version of the Chinese Wikipedia article for "crisis" is poorly written, I'm editing it. --Tomchen1989 (talk) 21:50, 14 August 2019 (UTC)

Wiktionary translation

Wiktionary actually translates 機 as "7. opportunity, chance, crucial point". Either Wiktionary is completely misleading or even flat out wrong to do so, or the alleged urban legend is not a legend at all, but essentially correct (you could only dispute if it's better to use the translation "opportunity" or "crucial point"). Yes, 機 has many other meanings too – but they are not relevant in context. --Florian Blaschke (talk) 10:59, 18 June 2019 (UTC)

The article states, in fact: "According to the 10th Edition of Xinhua Zidian, the best-selling Chinese dictionary, the character 機; jī in 危機; wēijī means "a point where things happen or change", this meaning appears to be neutral, from which derive two other meanings: "an event that has a confidential nature", and "chance (opportunity), good timing" which appears to be a positive one."

This indicates that while "crucial point" is presumably a more accurate or preferrable translation in the context of this compound, "opportunity" may not necessarily be incorrect, either. --Florian Blaschke (talk) 11:41, 18 June 2019 (UTC)

"機 in 危機 is opportunity" should be considered incorrect, otherwise crisis = danger + confidential (crisis/scandals are confidential and should be concealed) will be correct, too. Read the following section I wrote, #A native speaker's thought and digging. --Tomchen1989 (talk) 21:50, 14 August 2019 (UTC)

A native speaker's thought and digging

Hi, I'm a native Chinese speaker and I'm the guy who looked up the word in the Xinhua Zidian and added the reference in the article. I'd like to say something here, which might be good for future editing of the article.

Even some of the native speakers can't see the nuance:

The nuance between the 機 in 危機 and "opportunity" is hard to detect even by native Chinese speakers. Here in #If the Chinese use it... an IP user said he "was just listening to the BBC World Service, where a high-ranking member of the Chinese Foreign Ministry! just told me: 'In Chinese, 'crisis' is made of two characters: danger and opportunity.'"; I've recently read an answer on Quora [4], written by a Chinese PhD student at University of Cambridge who is well known in China because of his high upvoted, pro Chinese govt answers on Quora, the first sentence is: "In the Chinese language, every crisis has an opportunity hidden in it. This is reflected in the Chinese word: 危機. An opportunity (機) always comes after a crisis (危)." According to the version prior to this edit, Shoucheng Zhang, a Chinese-American physician at Stanford University also used this word.

But that high-ranking Foreign Ministry member, the PhD student at Cambridge (self-claimed to be a "coding peasant" therefore seems to be a Computer Science major) and the physician at Stanford are not linguists or sinologist, sometimes they could be prone to making linguist mistakes. Once I've talked with a Swiss sinologist long time ago, she knew the difference of several dialects of Chinese language pretty well, and better than me, I was impressed.

However, some native speakers can still kind of feel the subtle difference there. I see in previous discussion section there are some Chinese dudes also considering it to be a mistranslation. When I first heard this "crisis=opportunity" in Chinese thing from a French friend, I just felt it's bizarre, but was not quite sure if it's wrong.

When I saw it again here on Wikipedia, I looked it up in the dictionary.

Xinhua Zidian:

According to the best-selling Chinese dictionary, the character 機 (jī) means:

• Original Meaning 1. "a point where things happen or change", examples: 危機 (wēijī), ...
  • Derivative Meaning 1.1. "an event that has a confidential nature", examples: ...
  • Derivative Meaning 1.2. "chance (opportunity), good timing", examples: ...
• Original Meaning 2...

Some may say: so what? "weiji/crisis" refers to the original meaning 1, "opportunity" refers to the derivative meaning 1.2, 1.2 belongs to 1, they are kind of the same, right?

I'd say: not right. Why? Please see the following comparison.

Comparison of two use cases

Politians and motivational speakers want to motivate people, so they say: "look, don't be upset during a crisis, ancient Chinese wisdom tells us, crisis = danger + opportunity"! (making people think that Original Meaning 1 = Derivative Meaning 1.2) OK, this is less controversial because they say it for seemingly good purpose.

But, imagine a government or a company is facing a crisis, a scandal which they are trying to conceal, and they could say: "look Mr journalist, don't publish this news article, ancient Chinese wisdom tells us: crisis = danger + confidential, and this incident is indeed confidential and cannot be publicly known!" (making people think that Original Meaning 1 = Derivative Meaning 1.1)

Oh it's bad. The "ancient Chinese wisdom" is just a convenient tool that can be freely twisted to justify whatever point you want to make.

--Tomchen1989 (talk) 21:25, 14 August 2019 (UTC)

Have a wider look

I agree that the encyclopedic value of this article is difficult to see.

While it is clear that 危機 cannot be simply decomposed into its components 危 for danger (less controversial) and 機 for occasion or opportunity, a link exists, mainly idiomatically. A nice and complete discussion is available on stackexchange.

The Chengyu 錯失良機 is one example, where the component stands for the (missed, good) opportunity.

Japanese use the exact same characters 危機 to express crisis ("kiki"). In personal discussions that I could have with native speakers, they did not see a problem with the interpretation of "danger"+"occasion". But it is also acknowledged that kanji are ambiguous and subject to (multiple) interpretations, just like their chinese originals. The meaning of 機 in the sense of opportunity is likely to be very old, and certainly this meaning is older than that of "machine".

In any case the chinese language (and writing) has a longer history than English, and it is difficult to imagine how it has involved for 3000 years. I would not exclude that some of the evolutions in neighbouring countries have found its way back into chinese. A nice example is how Yamato-damashii#Later_history Yamato-damashii became Wakon over centuries of exchanges of linguistic ping-pong between China and Japan.

In summary, I think the article as it stands today is a hypothesis or opinion, rather than secured knowledge backed by objective sources. It only points to all sources where the statement "crisis = danger+opportunity" was used, until back to 1938, and simply states that those all were wrong.

--DirkHoffmann (talk) 23:55, 23 April 2020 (UTC)

Note that some (zh/ja) native speakers who are not linguists may agree '"機" in "危機" = "opportunity"'. But I'd say "'"機" in "危機" = "opportunity"' is mistranslation" is "secured knowledge" if you ask linguists and sinologists. --Tomchen1989 (talk) 11:57, 27 May 2021 (UTC)

Also, in English, "occasion" is not perfectly equivalent to "opportunity". It lies somewhere between "opportunity" and "event" (and Wikipedia article "occasion" redirects to "event" rather than "opportunity"). "機" in "危機" means "point" / "change point" which could also roughly be interpreted as "event". So you see, people who do not agree '"機" in "危機" = "opportunity"' may somewhat agree '"機" in "危機" = "occasion"'. --Tomchen1989 (talk) 11:57, 27 May 2021 (UTC)

Untitled

what is written below is far more enlightening than the Article so i propose the authors of what's below switch Talk with the Article! What's more, it sounds like "crisis" is an inappropriate single word translation too, recommend changing it to "precarious" or somesuch — Preceding unsigned comment added by 118.209.19.85 (talk) 13:14, 29 May 2020 (UTC)