Chinese Dream: Flying nine days
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From Fangyi Cheng:
Zhōngguó mèng fēi jiǔtiān 中国梦飞九天
("China's Dream soars beyond the highest heaven")
The Chinglish translation on the sign is from Baidu Fanyi or Bing Translator.
tiān 天 has a multiplicity of meanings: day, sky, heaven(s), God. weather, nature, season, celestial, overhead.
Here jiǔtiān 九天 means not "nine days", but "the Ninth Heaven; the highest of heavens; the empyrean".
In the context of the PRC space program, tiān 天 may be thought of as "skies" or even "outer space".
Thus, "The Chinese dream (or: China's dream) soars into (or: beyond) the skies (or: into outer space)."
Other possibilities: "China's dream soars beyond the skies / heavens / highest heaven / empyrean."
[Thanks to Pan Da'an and John Rohsenow]
Ed Connelly said,
April 5, 2014 @ 6:04 pm
This the problem with machine translations. They
are even worse when it comes to Classical Chinese.
Victor Mair said,
April 5, 2014 @ 8:28 pm
Another instance in support of the correct translation of 九天:
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Máo Zédōng: “Kě shàng jiǔtiān lǎn yuè, kě xià wǔyáng zhuō biē.
毛泽东： “可上九天揽月，可下五洋捉鳖。
"[I] can ascend to the empyrean to take hold of the moon, can descend into the five oceans to grasp the turtle"
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Graeme said,
April 6, 2014 @ 1:59 am
Just don't mention MH370 in this context.
GeorgeW said,
April 6, 2014 @ 7:55 am
@Graeme: Please tell CNN. Please! This may be the last possible relationship to the flight that has not been exploited ad nauseam.
(Sorry for the digression, but when I saw the post, this was what came to my mind as well.)