Posted by Shakespeare once wrote “a rose by any other name would smell as sweet” in Romeo and Juliet. But language and words are important, and when it comes to translation, becomes more important. What if you were in a country which had never seen a rose or even know what a rose is? Would it be sufficient to translate it as a “flower by any other name”? But then it would lose some of its meaning as Shakespeare’s usage of the specific flower, a rose, already has deep meaning to those in the West who understand that not only is a rose a sweet fragrant flower, but one that stands as a symbol of romantic love as well. A white chrysanthemum would smell as sweet as a rose but for the Chinese, it is what is traditionally used in funeral arrangements where the mourners are traditionally dressed in white.
For me, culture and language are immutable. They feed off each other and reflect on each other. I have two favourite examples of this. The first is the German word schadenfreude which has been adopted into English for the simple reason that there is no comparable word. In English, it is used to mean “pleasure derived by someone from another person’s misfortune”, a concept distinct from sadism which is “pleasure from inflicting pain on others, often in a sexual context.” Schadenfreude is when, for example, your neighbour or colleague who you hate and think is a jerk; experiences misfortune (wife leaves him, loses his job, smashes his car) and you privately smirk and laugh and think “serves him right”. We all know the feeling, but what is it about German culture that makes them create a single word to describe it but English speakers have to borrow the word because it is maybe taboo in the culture to be thinking that?
My second one is the Japanese word karoshi (過労死), which can be literally translated as death from overwork. This describes when a normal and healthy say 30 year old Japanese salaryman (office worker), after years of punishing 12 hour work days, high stress, and maybe constant semi-compulsory excessive alcohol drinking at night with co-workers just drops dead at his desk from a stroke or heart attack. This phenomenon is so common in Japan (and much of East Asia) that they created a specific word to describe it. In the West, we have no such equivalent, perhaps because the phenomenon is not so pronounced. Sure we can understand the concept, but there is no single word in English to describeswaqzedx it. This is what I mean by language reflecting the culture and vice-versa.
When people in China asked me what is the difference between China and the West, I used to give two simple examples. Of course the examples worked best when my counterpart was fluent in English but they always worked nonetheless. One of the principal foundations of Chinese society and culture is the concept of (孝xiào) which is a virtue of respect for one’s parents, elders, and ancestors. One of the ancient Confucian treatise on this is the Classic of Filial Piety (孝經 xiaojing) which gives advice and philosophy of how to behave towards a senior such as a father, an elder brother, or a ruler. Now this word, as you have already seen, can be translated into English as the words filial piety. The problem is, the average Westerner today (absent a few over educated ivy league academic elitists) has no meaning what that means. There was a time where the meaning would be better understood as The Bible has similar tenants like “honor your father and your mother” but as religion has retreated from much of mainstream Western culture, the concept of even this limited bit of filial piety has slowly disappeared from conscious thought and debate. But to understand Chinese culture as it is still practiced today, one cannot underestimate how xiao underpins the family structure and greater society (including deference to all elders and authority).
My second example was to do a quick language translation quiz. I would ask them to translate the word (朋友 péngyǒu) and the answer was quickly “friend”. In all its iterations 好朋友 (best friend) 老朋友 (old friend) the translation into English is fairly accurate and correct. I then ask them to translate (爱情 Àiqíng) and the response is quickly and accurate “love”. So far so good. But then I tell them to translate (感情 Gǎnqíng) which is typically translated as “emotion or feeling”. Now, gǎnqíng is more than just having an emotion or feeling. Often times its used for many things and has a much deeper meaning like I have a strong emotional attachment to my dog that is separate and different than love. It is also said that when deep romantic love burns out, say in a long marriage of 50 years, that romantic love is replaced with this deep emotional attachment of gǎnqíng. In fact, over the years, everybody that I have asked this question to whether from China or Hong Kong has had great difficulty translating the meaning of gǎnqíng because it basically can’t be translated as there really is no English equivalent just like schadenfreude or karoshi. Gǎnqíng is in fact a really deep emotional feeling or attachment that is akin to but not quite romantic love but far stronger than mere friendship. People in love will have gǎnqíng for one another, so can friends. More importantly, when combined with filial piety, it is not uncommon and perhaps even expect that one simply doesn’t discard a marriage because “love” is gone or muted but there is still gǎnqíng.
Now think about what is commonly said about marriages in the West today. Even if you aren’t outright enemies who hate each other after a messy divorce, the best that can be portrayed in the media is the couple who are “still friends” and respectfully take turns at child custody. Like this recent article in the Atlantic, “What It’s Like to Truly Be Friends With Your Ex“. “We can’t always neatly break things into ‘friends’ or ‘more than friends.’ There’s different kinds of love.” Well, that kind of actually sums up my argument about gǎnqíng; in English we have to go through an entire twisted set of sentences saying there are different kinds of love and more than friends. As the couple in the article say, “I would say that Julie and I are more than friends. At this point, I categorize Julie as my sister. It’s deeper than friendship, but it’s not romantic, and it’s certainly not sexual… My wife and I have this phrase: ‘Earth words suck.’ There just sometimes aren’t the right words to describe the many different kinds of friendship out there… The limitation that we have in our language limits our thinking about what relationships can be and what friendship can be.”
I would have to disagree with them and its not ‘Earth words’ that suck but the English language. You can go through your long winded and tortured attempts to describe what you are still feeling for each other; In Chinese, I can simply say that they still have gǎnqíng.