Chinese Quotes - page 35
There is a widespread public misperception, particularly among the New Age sector, that the Chinese word for "crisis” is composed of elements that signify "danger” and "opportunity.” I first encountered this curious specimen of alleged oriental wisdom about ten years ago at an altitude of 35,000 feet sitting next to an American executive. ... While it is true that wēijī does indeed mean "crisis” and that the wēi syllable of wēijī does convey the notion of "danger,” the jī syllable of wēijī most definitely does not signify "opportunity.” ... The jī of wēijī, in fact, means something like "incipient moment; crucial point (when something begins or changes).” Thus, a wēijī is indeed a genuine crisis, a dangerous moment, a time when things start to go awry. A wēijī indicates a perilous situation when one should be especially wary.
Victor H. Mair
One day somebody should remind us that, even though there may be political and ideological differences between us, the Vietnamese are our brothers, the Russians are our brothers, the Chinese are our brothers; and one day we've got to sit down together at the table of brotherhood.
Martin Luther King Jr.
For too long we have kept ourselves in our ethnic boxes and continue to see ourselves as either indigenous Fijians, Indo-Fijians, Europeans, part-Europeans, Chinese, Pacific Islanders, or others. For as long as that wall remains we will continue to view one another with suspicion and distrust. This is the fear that is fueled by political manouvering to keep us divided while for some to remain in power.
Epeli Ganilau
Despite the firewall, Chinese companies continue to advertise themselves on Facebook and Google-my dentist in Shanghai puts his Gmail address in scrolling LEDs in front of his practice. To do business with the rest of the world, Chinese firms increasingly have to get good at using services that are both essential and (theoretically) unavailable.
Clay Shirky
Wiko, a French phone company, went from concept to company when the founders were shopping for parts in Shenzhen (as one does). Wiko had trouble raising money-few investors believed a new European phone company could succeed-so they took an investment from the Chinese manufacturer Tinno Mobile. Wiko is thus mostly Chinese, both owned and supplied by Tinno, but given its thin veneer of French design and marketing it looks like a local firm to the French. The resulting excitement over Wiko as a homegrown business helped them to become the second largest phone vendor in France (after Samsung, as usual). This preserves the pattern of "designed elsewhere, made in China,” but with the twist that ownership, not just sourcing and manufacturing, has now moved to China as well.
Clay Shirky
Greeks, Armenians, Jews, Persians, Chinese and Japanese could be cited as examples of ethnic continuity, since, despite massive cultural changes over the centuries, certain key identifying components-name, language, customs, religious community and territorial association-were broadly maintained and reproduced for millennia.
Anthony D. Smith
In the United States we have two competing mythologies about immigration. On the one hand, we believe that different kinds of races make up an American person. On the other, a deep nativist strain keeps resurfacing. Nevertheless, there has also been strong resistance to nativism. Frederick Douglass, for instance, called the United States a "composite nation” when he argued against the Chinese Exclusion Act [of 1882].
Min Jin Lee
The Chinese people have always cherished goodwill towards the American people. In 1784, U.S. merchant ship, Empress of China, sailed to China, opening the friendly exchanges between our two peoples. In mid 19th century, several dozen thousand Chinese workers, working side-by-side with American workers and braving harsh conditions, built the great railway linking the East and the West of the American continent.
Hu Jintao
The Chinese and the Americans are great peoples. The Americans are optimistic, full of enterprising drive, down to earth, and innovative. In just over 200 years, they have turned the United States into the most developed country in the world, and made phenomenal achievements in economic development and science and technology.
Hu Jintao
The concerns of the people are what I always care about, and the aspirations of the people are what I always strive for. Having worked in the countryside myself, I know precisely what poverty feels like. Thanks to the sustained efforts of the Chinese people from generation to generation, those who once lived in poverty no longer have to worry about food or clothing, or access to education, housing and medical insurance.
Xi Jinping
The Chinese Communist Party has it figured out. After 62 years of blunders, horrors, and reversals, they have pulled off a miracle of statecraft, a Staatskunst Wunder. With their 77 million members distributed in hundreds of thousands of cells, they have turned Lenin's crude power cult into a robust, adaptable apparatus of total control that, like God in the universe, is everywhere present but nowhere visible-or is visible only, as with that photograph, in a form so bland the eye turns away in search of something recognizably human.
John Derbyshire
Jiang: I just... I just wanted to... that is every time I meet you all, I say, in Chinese we have saying, "make a fortune quietly." If I had said nothing, that would have been the best. But I thought I've seen all of you so enthusiastic. If I said nothing, that wouldn't be good. So, a moment ago you just insisted... In spreading the news, if your reports are inaccurate, you must be responsible. I did not say I am imperially appointing [Tung]. No such meaning. But you insisted on asking me whether I supported Mr. Tung or not. He is still the current Chief Executive. How could we not support the Chief Executive? Isn't it.
Jiang Zemin
The Chinese Government extends its warm congratulations on the convocation of this session and hopes that it will make a positive contribution to strengthening the unity of the developing countries, safeguarding their national economic rights and interests and promoting the struggle of all peoples against imperialism, and particularly against hegemonism.
Deng Xiaoping
If one day China should change her colour and turn into a superpower, if she too should play the tyrant in the world, and everywhere subject others to her bullying, aggression and exploitation, the people of the world should identify her as social-imperialism, expose it, oppose it and work together with the Chinese people to overthrow it.
Deng Xiaoping
