I’m sure you’ve noticed in your Chinese studies that there are some words for which you can switch the order of the characters and get a new word! In Chinese these can be called 倒序词. I’ve put together a list of 20 倒序词 pairs, most of which I’ve stumbled across over the past couple years. It’s so interesting to see the relationships between the words! Most example sentences are via Pleco.
开放 kāifàng - to bloom / to open / to be open (to the public) / to open up (to the outside) / to be open-minded / unrestrained by convention 图书馆从上午9点开放到下午6点。 放开 fàng//kāi - to let go / to release 妈妈放开了女儿的手。
喜欢 xǐhuan - to like / to be fond of 你喜欢不喜欢中国音乐？ 欢喜 huānxǐ - happy / joyous / delighted / to like / to be fond of 她心跳加速，满心欢喜。
著名 zhùmíng - famous / noted / well-known / celebrated 我们的中文老师是一位著名的小说家。 名著 míngzhù - masterpiece, famous book, celebrated work 我最近读的名著有点太多了。
犯罪 fàn//zuì - to commit a crime / crime / offense 听到她的犯罪历史，我大吃一惊。 罪犯 zuìfàn - criminal 警察还没有抓到那些罪犯。
事故 shìgù - accident 事故的原因还在调查之中。 故事 gùshì - old practice || gùshi - narrative / story / tale 这是一个真实的故事。
女儿 nǚ'ér - daughter 他们的三个孩子都是女儿，没有儿子。 儿女 érnǚ - children / sons and daughters 儿女有赡养老人的义务。
Tang dynasty women playing polo, paintings by Wang Kewei
The word polo is thought to derive from the Tibetan pulu, the wood from which the ball was made.
Much controversy surrounds the origin of polo. Tibet, China, Iran, India, and Central Asia have all been proposed as homelands for the game. It remains possible that the game had more than one point of origin, though a recent study has argued convincingly that polo developed in northeastern Iran out of the equestrian chase games played by the mounted nomads of Central Asia in the last centuries before the Common Era.
Polo probably was introduced to China sometime between the end of the Han period (206 B.C.E.- 220 C.E.) and the early part of the Tang dynasty (618-907). It seems likely that it was introduced by the Xianbei tribes that controlled northern China from the fourth to sixth century. The ruling house of the Tang dynasty, the Li family, itself had
Xianbei
ancestry, at least on the maternal side. The Xianbei, because of their nomadic origins, had a great fondness for horses, a trait that (like many aspects of their culture) was inherited by the Tang dynasty. It is also notable that the Xianbei accorded higher status and more physical freedom to women than the Han Chinese, so women became avid polo players under the Tang dynasty.
The emperors of the Tang dynasty such as Zhongzong, Xuanzong, Muzong, Jingzong, Xuanzong, Xizong, and Zhaozong were all supporters and participants themselves in the polo sport. In the 6th year of the Tianbao era (747), Emperor Tang Xuanzong issued a special order, and declared that polo would become one of the subjects for military training.
Polo was wildly popular during the Tang dynasty but it was also dangerous; riders thrown from their horses were frequently injured or killed. So sometimes donkeys were used instead of horses - as a safer alternative.
The Tang era terracotta figurines of polo players, both male and female, were unearthed in China. The game is also depicted on paintings and on frescoes in excavated tombs.
From Tang times on, the education of the upper class became more bookish, and martial skills, such as horsemanship, archery, and swordsmanship, came to play a lesser role in the elite life. So polo also gradually lost its popularity and completely fade away by the Qing dynasty.
Women stopped playing polo much earlier - when the conservative Neo-Confucian teaching grew in popularity after the Tang dynasty fall. For women, Neo-Confucianism placed extra emphasis on chastity, obedience and diligence. A good wife should have no desire other than to serve her husband, no ambition other than to produce a son, and no interest beyond subjugating herself to her husband’s family. Of course, this left no space for physical training, horsemanship and sport.
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The vast majority (around 80%) of Chinese characters are made up of a radical (the general meaning) and a phonetic.
Radical 女 nǚ (woman) and phonetic 馬 mǎ (horse) = 媽 mā, mother (your mum sounds like a horse).
But a small minority are pictograms, that is to say a picture of the thing they represent.
Pictograms are the earliest characters, thousands of years old, but many are still used every day.
If you look at the oracle bone script for rat, tiger and elephant you’ll see they are clearly pictures of the animal they signify.
But if you look at the modern versions, you’ll notice something odd, they’re all rotated 90 degrees onto their sides.
Why? Why are all these characters written with the animals balancing on their tails?
Well, it’s for a straight-forward, practical reason.
For a couple thousand years before paper was invented writing materials were limited. We had silk (expensive), bronze (expensive and impractical), and oracle bones (religious use only).
And one more…
That was cheap, plentiful, durable, and easy to erase and rewrite characters. The wonder that is…
Bamboo!
It was cut into strips, and tied into books. Long thin strips of bamboo contributed to the Chinese custom of writing vertically, from top to bottom (and right to left).
But it also meant that it’s much easier to write some characters length-ways so that they easily fit onto the strip.
So that’s it, mystery solved. That’s why a lot of Chinese picture characters are written at a right angle.
