Monday 30 January 2023

Getting off to a fresh start

It says “Canto Slang” but these are old-time sayings in standard mandarin. Called “Chen yu “, four character phrases. To the right of the phrases is my addition of the way to pronounce them in Mandarin. Underneath are the Cantonese pronunciations. 

It reminds me of a time decades ago when I met the man who’d been in charge of mainland- Taiwan relations on the mainland side, Wang Daohan. He was famous for his calligraphy. I had the gall to invent and inscribe a new “Cheng yu” — 创新 保传  Bǎo chuán Chuàng Xīn “Protect the traditional and create the new”, as we were trying to come up with new ways to handle traditional cross straits relations. 

He loved it. (Or graciously pretended to).