Immediately on Top

Year 2014 is the year of the horse in the Chinese Zodiac. One word that revolves around the concept of horse in Chinese, English and Malay is horsepower. As a specific value, horsepower is a common unit of measurement for mechanical power. The horse notion is iconically prevalent in horsepower in some other languages, such as /马力; mǎ (horse) lì (power)/ in Mandarin, or /kuasa [power] kuda [horse]/ in Malay. A short discussion on iconicity is available in Sew (2005).

                                     image taken from http://thedesigninspiration.com/photos/horsepower/

Cataloging lexical compounds between Chinese, English and Malay for a contrast of morphosyntactic variation makes a typical comparison. The morpheme horse is at the initial position of the English and Chinese lexical composition in contrast to the final position of the Malay compound. In terms of lexical combination, the Malay bipartite compound kuasa kuda  exists in an opposite combinatory to horsepower and /马力/ in Mandarin. 

In the remainderof this blog post, the focus is on the Chinese characters horse and top. /马 mǎ 上 shàng/, which initially denote on top of a running horse, is currently an adverb meaning immediately. Jim Gibney (2011), who teaches English in China, observes that /mashang/, which literally means 'at horse speed', turns out to be 'eventually' when it comes to getting repair work done for his building.

In the visual representation below, the idiomatic /mashang/ combines with two other Chinese characters have 有 and presents 礼 to denote a wish that is synonymous to receive gift immediately. From a semiotic viewpoint, the visual representation depicts a gift (written with the character 福 fortune) sitting on top of equine as the main component of /mashang/. If iconic symbolization may be part of cultural semiotics (Sew, 2005), the red paper cutting represents an original aspect of /mashang/.

In Chinese culture, apart from material objects, gift as a cultural concept may refer to the money offered to the host of a wedding or birthday banquet (see the Mandarin skit illustrating the plight of a married Chinese couple who hatched a plan for throwing a 10th anniversary wedding banquet as a strategy to make some quick money in Chun Wan 2014, http://www.chun-wan.com/). Receiving gifts is a double-edged sword, as it may be interpreted as bribery, although it is a cultural practice in many parts of the Chinese-speaking world for establishing guang 关 shi系 (relationship), or networking in a cultural-specific corporate world. The delivery of hampers among business associates normally peaks during the month before Chinese New Year in Singapore and Malaysia.

                                      Image taken from http://www.fudan.org.cn/archives/20119/mashang

Interestingly, there is a reversal of meaning change in the pragmatics of /mashang/. Diachronically, the horse character /马/ and top character /上/ undergo the process of semantic bleaching becoming less equine- and top-like in /马上/. Semantic bleaching is related to grammaticalization - a process in which a lexical word loses its original meaning in time. In terms of diachronic grammar, many claim that grammaticalization is unilateral, i.e. a one way development in which a full lexical word becomes more grammatical gradually. There are others who do not subscribe to the unilateral direction of grammaticalization. This post merely recounts a usage-based situation in which a grammaticalized word regains its original lexical meaning.

For illustration and comparison of Chinese wishes in the real world  that begin with /mashang/, Table 1 contains two types of wish shared verbally during Chinese New Year in Southeast Asia, particularly Singapore and Malaysia. The first type is the immediately-have-thing wish such as immediately own money, house, and car. The second category, in contrast, is the immediately-be-in-a-state wish including immediately be prosperous, immediately be lucky, and immediately be happy.

Mandarin wishes	Hanyu Pinyin	Meaning
马上有钱	ma shang you qian  (Tho, 2014)	Get rich immediately (Tho, 2014)
马上有房	ma shang you fang (Tho, 2014)	Own a house immediately (Tho, 2014)
马上有车[号]	ma shang you che [hao] (Tho, 2014, brackets mine)	Obtain a car [licence plate] immediately (Tho, 2014, brackets mine)
马上发财	ma shang fā cái	Strike a fortune immediately
马上好运	ma shang hǎo yùn	Become lucky immediately
马上心福	ma shang xin fú	Blessed with happiness immediately

Table 1: Select Chinese New Year Greetings in Mandarin

The year 2014 offers an immediate opportunity for the horse and top characters to spring into life, as it were, via a zodiac-based fortification in the semantics of wishing repertoire invoked as a face-to-face cultural practice. Both characters /mashang/ reverberate an on-top-of-the-horse meaning because the immediately-wishes in Table 1 are not commonly shared with each other in Chinese New Year yet become relevant and popular in conjunction with the ushering in of the year of the horse.

After knowing that /mashang/ is used to wish for something immediately, or get into a wonderful state immediately, we may append many things or states that are desirable for listeners in our verbal interaction. A well-tailored wish in the year of the horse will definitely enhance one's CQ (cultural intelligence) immediately, so to speak. The scope that follows the immediately-wish is definitely diverse ranging from good health, youthfulness, longevity, pregnancy, daughter, son, or promotion for everybody in accordance to one's preference(s).

Data base and work consulted

Chinese https://chinese.yabla.com/

Gibney, Jim. (2011). What ma shang really means. Chinadaily.com.cn  http://www.chinadaily.com.cn/china/mychinastory/2011-12/26/content_14327802.htm

Sew, Jyh Wee. (2005). Iconicity. In P. Strazny (ed.). The Encyclopedia of Linguistics (pp. 487-488). New York: Routledge.

__________. (2014). Spring in other dialect. Grammar Gang. http://thegrammargang.blogspot.sg/2014/01/spring-in-other-dialect.html

Tho, Sin Yi (2014). Cheeky equine greetings of the Horse 2014. Rightways: Sowing the seeds to success. http://rightwayssuccess.blogspot.sg/2014/01/cheeky-equine-greetings-of-horse-2014.html

Jyh Wee Sew

Centre for Language Studies, Faculty of Arts & Social Sciences

Kent Ridge Campus, National University of Singapore

Spring in other dialect

I must write down this Chinese verbal example that I heard while having breakfast in a market-cum-hawker centre before I forget. The reopening of the market place near my house in Jan. 2014 after it underwent renovation for nine months was a relief, especially for people like me who wanted a fast and nutritious breakfast before going to work. Breakfast is never complete without a glass of hot coffee or hot tea in good old Southeast Asian style.

Hot tea served in the heartland coffee shops in Singapore

The image is taken from http://beverageclub.wordpress.com/

As I was sipping my tea one working morning, I overheard the guy serving me coffee talking about somebody acting in a silly manner by sticking the Mandarin word 春[chūn] meaning /spring/ in English on the back of the wok. As some background information, it is perfectly fine to see this Chinese word stuck on the doors and in selected corners of a Chinese house to symbolise the arrival of spring for ushering in Lunar Chinese New Year. (Spring is a symbolic concept in a tropical country like Singapore) It is a traditional as well as a current practice for invoking the sense of festivity by putting up red strips of spring- and fortune-related Chinese words among many Chinese household in Southeast Asia.

                                                      The Mandarin Character for Spring

                                 The image is taken from http://mydiamondsutra.net/index.php 

According to the coffee seller, however, sticking the Mandarin word /spring/ on the wok at the hawker centre is not a good commercial-cultural strategy, not least the word is also sound symbolic to the word /chuun, tonal marking excluded/, which means /remain/ in Hokkien, another Chinese dialect spoken in Singapore, Malaysia and some parts of Indonesia. Playing by a Hokkien ear to the Mandarin /spring/ in a food business context would simply beget a possible situation whereby the food prepared for sale will remain as leftover in the stall. The three patrons including me had a hearty laugh while eating our breakfast, paying little interest to the validity of the cultural hypothesis, at first.

Instantaneously speaking in Hokkien, one male patron responded in a rather logically manner that it would definitely be the accurate move to stick the word in the kitchen at home, for at least there would be leftover every day. Of course, having leftover is not a good practice in the critical eyes of a nutritionist who would be insisting on all the meals served fresh. However, to a common Chinese mind, (cooked) food available in a kitchen is a sign of abundance and indexical to some form of basic happiness with hunger kept at bay.

While I am not sure if anybody would pay too much attention to the cultural semiotics underpinning the traditional practice of putting up auspicious Chinese words, I bet nobody in a normal mindset would dare to stick an inauspicious phrase or evil-sounding word at home, in the car or one's bedroom. We did have popular rock bands singing out loudly unauspicious words in their songs and in the case of one rock group, the lead singer wound up in a self-inflicted tragic ending.

The moral of the lesson is to offer good words to our loved ones no matter how redundant or insignificant they may seem to be at first. I remember seeing loving words in the Christian households, religious reminders in the Malay households, encouraging words in my hostel mates’ rooms and, of course, wealth-related words in Chinese commercial sites. There must be good reason if not symbolic-semiotic reason to be surrounded with good words in whatever language that speaks to our heart and soul.

Jyh Wee Sew
Centre for Language Studies
Faculty of Arts & Social Sciences
National University of Singapore