Mere China Language   

Fun Chinese Lessons - 9: 

Danger and Opportunity: the Chinese Expression for "Crisis"

You may have heard people say that the Chinese expression for “crisis?is consisted of two characters, one meaning “danger?and the other “opportunity.?U.S. President John F. Kennedy reportedly once referred to this phenomenon in a speech as a way to inspire his fellow Americans to rise up to challenges at the time and turn trials into accomplishments.

The two Chinese characters in question are most likely Wei Ji :

Wei does have the meaning of danger and Ji implies chance, a pivot, or a crucial point in time. So, just as people believed, the expression seems to signify the dual nature of a crisis - peril and potential. This fits nicely with the Chinese Taoist worldview, which has the ying-yang balance at its core and suggests that a curse can be a blessing in disguise and vise versa.

Nevertheless, this seems to be an outsider’s interpretation of a Chinese term; the Chinese themselves haven’t really thought that much about the particular making of the given phrase, at least not to the knowledge of this writer. So the interesting interpretation in some ways resembles things like chop suey or spring rolls - they seem to have some Chinese origin or basis but are not very often found at Chinese restaurants in China today.

An outsider’s interpretation it may be, but it is a rather nice one. Perhaps this shows how diligent foreign students of a culture can discover secrets which even those living inside the culture haven’t become fully aware of. This only further validates the point that people can become more thoughtful and wiser by tackling certain challenges, in this case the challenge of studying the difficult Chinese language.

Mere China Language