OK, I admit that while I am living in a country that will soon be hosting the 2008 Olympics, I haven't really absorbed a lot of the details associated with it. Pretty much like it was when Atlanta hosted! However, I was talking to someone the other night about the mascots and the fact that there was a lot of symbolism involved with the Fuwa, very typical of many activities here in China. I felt pretty silly not being able to actually summarize the symbolism, especially after living here for a year and a half. So I jumped online and learned a bit. I have only in the past 4 months started learning Chinese characters and I find them totally interesting, so I was very surprised at the symbolism just in the characters. Thought I would share my learning's for any interested!
First of all, I am sure you have all seen the mascots, right? Each of Fuwa has a rhyming two-syllable name. Using two words for proper names like this is very typical with children is a common way of expressing children. Beibei is the Fish, Jingjing is the Panda, Huanhuan is the Olympic Flame, Yingying is the Tibetan Antelope and Nini is the Swallow. When you put their names together, Bei Jing Huan Ying Ni, it translates to "Welcome to Beijing". Chinese: "北京欢迎你", I'll not argue with that, though the literal translation (with my simple 14 months of mandarin lessons) would actually be Beijing Welcomes You. Weird, huh? And the position in which the Character are standing are somewhat in the same design as the characters of their names. The characters each loosely translate to prosperity, happiness, passion, health, good fortune.
Some other interesting notes about the characters. In traditional Chinese culture, the fish represents prosperity, as the character for fish (魚) sounds the same as that for surplus (餘 / 余). The Chinese character for swallow (燕) is also used in Yanjing (燕京), an old name for Beijing; thus the swallow alludes to Beijing.
Anyway, I better get back to surviving without my little girl!!
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