The meanings of all words change with time. Dictionary translations, like tectonic fault lines, are all the more volatile. When the term communist party was first introduced into Chinese, it could have been translated in a variety of different ways, Gong She (collective-society), Gong He (collective-unity), but it was translated into Gong Chan (collective-production). To multilingual Chinese, they may be able to understand the meaning of communist in English and perhaps follow the evolution of its meaning, but for the majority of the people in China, collective-production is all they have ever heard and can think about.
Mrs. Spivak liked to use the word catechresis to describe the semiotic inconsistency of the term continent, if Europe, an identity based on common market and culture is called a continent, then the Indian ocean should also be called a continent. Why does continent mean one thing in one context and something else in another? This is a question of deep relevance to translators.
When democracy was translated into Chinese, it became ming zhu. Ming means citizens, or more accurately demos. Zhu means master, lord, God. The -cracy of democracy shows up nowhere in the Chinese word. -cracy refers to a bureaucratic arrangement, democracy: citizen-executive; theocracy: priest-executive. Ming zhu, translated back into English would be demogod, citizen-lord. Lords give meaning, set visions, lords are not bureaucrats. The question of how a bureaucracy ought to be arranged has never been at the forefront of the Chinese mind. The only -cracy they seem to understand or care about is meritocracy, an age old tradition that has never really fallen out of favor.
Then there is the word civilization, which in Chinese is wen ming. Wen is words, literature, symbol, more accurately, logos. Ming is the same ming as above, demos. Translated back into English, you get demo-logo, demology, citizen-discourse, the logic of social contract among a group of people. The ancient Egyptians were a wen ming, the Romans were a wen ming. Christiandom was a wen ming, but America would not generally be said to be a wen ming, although it may be under future historical analysis. A wen ming has a population and a teleology, it is some sort of a social contract in which each member of the ming has a meaning and definition. There is a deeply spiritual connotation. In the words of Mencius: without lord or father, one is but a beast.
Combining demogod with demology, one begins to understand what “democracy” might mean in Chinese. The meritocratic executive is responsible to discovering the ming zhu, the demogod, the teleological yearnings of the demos and to translate that into a new five year demology. Unlike the undemocratic wen ming of the past, a ming zhu wen ming means the teleology of the demos is actively revised and updated, the entire demos participates in shaping the meaning of life through everyday conversions that trickle up, through art, through the marketplace, through science and technology.
Hopefully this can explain why speeches at the People’s Congress are so confusing to outside observers. Where are the policies? Where are the bureaucratic arrangements? Where is the -cracy? Of course it would be very difficult for a Chinese speaker to understand the cause of such confusion, they only know demogod not democracy. They are interested into their ming zhu wen ming, their new five year eschatology, summoned from the demos, the new testament of the demogod.
Recently, these commandments have been: eco-civilization, harmonious society, national rejuvenation, and so on. The process in which these commandments are summoned is beyond any one person’s understanding. All anyone knows is there are normal eveyday conversations, spoken in a certain tone and felt in a certain way; then there are the demological conversations where people are summoning the demogod in their communities and relationships. Somehow the demological diaglogues add up, more or less, to a demology that can be put into words, and people feel understood for the most part. The demology is not just for governance, its also what people put their surplus calories into working on. There is no boundary between state and individual as far as wen ming is concerned. You could say that whereas America has separation of church and state, China has non-differentiation of church and state (although there is no church per se), it is only a vague analogy that easily breaks down if extended.
English speakers often do, and should, find such a configuration frightening. What about religious freedom, what about checks and balances, what about a million other things. And if you bring up these worries to the Chinese, they become worried too: I never thought about that, that’s such an interesting point, but how these concerns will translate into a language they can understand will require lots of patience (and reams of ultra sophisticated translations). But here English speakers should remind themselves that they can’t really understand what they are hearing either. There is no word “demogod” there is no word “demology”, for you to wrap your mind around these concepts will take patience and amazing translators as well. (like me).
The difficulty of civilizations understanding each other might seem daunting and frightening. This need not be so. Step back and think about what words really are. According to great African scholar named Dr. Mumbi, words are magical spells. Casting different spells will conjure different states of affairs. The spell called democracy leads to a certain configuration of behaviors and activities. The spell called ming zhu leads to a different configuration of behaviors and activities. Magic is simply a tool humans have learned to harness. We won’t ever stop harnessing it. And when applied to sticks and stones, magic can become real. I trust Africans on this matter, as they probably invented magic in the first place. There are no confusions that cannot be clarified through more sorcery.
