Language Log

« previous post | next post »

From a Facebook page with Army background in Taiwan:

Facebook page for Voice of Han Broadcasting Network
(漢聲廣播電台 hànshēng guǎngbō diàntái)
from Taiwan's Ministry of National Defense

The large lettering on the poster reads:

zǎo ān
bù wèi fēngyǔ
dōu shì weather nǐ

早安
不畏風雨，
都是weather你

Good morning
Not afraid of wind or rain
It's all for you

The "weather" is a crosslingual pun for wèile 為了 ("for; on behalf of").

You can see that the soldiers are all decked out for inclement weather, which comes a lot in Taiwan.

The poster is part of the publicity for the Han Kuang Exercise, which is going on right now (Monday, Jul 22, 2024 – Friday, Jul 26, 2024).

The Han Kuang Exercise (Chinese: 漢光演習; pinyin: Hànguāng Yǎnxí) is the annual military exercise of the Republic of China Armed Forces in Taiwan, Penghu, Kinmen and Matsu for combat readiness in the event of an attack from the People's Liberation Army of the People's Republic of China.
(source)

For those who are curious, "Han Kuang" superficially means "light / glory of Han", but in the context of the Han Kuang Exercise, its authoritative intent originally was Dàhàn guāngfù 大漢光復 ("gloriously restore the Great Han").  That harkened back to the Han Dynasty (202 BC-25-220 AD), but, in the context of the ROC-PRC confrontation, it had the implication of "retake the mainland".  That was clearly the sentiment of the KMT (Nationalist) government and the couple of million people from the mainland who accompanied Chiang Kai-shek when he retreated with his armies to Taiwan when the communists conquered China.  After the KMT lost its dominance over the island nation to the Taiwanese majority DPP (Democratic Progressive Party) at the beginning of the new millennium, the Han Kuang Exercise — regardless of the original intent of the name — was reinterpreted to emphasize the strongest possible defensive posture against the threat of an attack by the PRC / CCP.  (source, especially note 1)

This year the Han Kuang Exercise has particular poignancy and urgency because of the heightened tensions in the region and the ever increasing hostility of the mainland military forces.

Aside from the crosslingual pun involving "weather" that I explained above, there's another very important linguistic aspect to the Han Kuang Exercise that I almost neglected to mention.  Namely, the Han Kuang Exercise is carried out bilingually, in "Chinese" and English.  I would hope that "Chinese" means that the written components of the war games are in Mandarin, but that the spoken components include Taiwanese and other languages of Taiwan.

I have on several occasions mentioned that the government of Taiwan during the 21st century has made it clear that it wishes to make English an official language of the country.  The fact that the Han Kuang Exercise is conducted in "Chinese" and English is solid evidence of working toward the realization of this goal.

Selected readings

• "English as an official language in Taiwan" (12/8/18)
• Ralph Jennings, "Isolation-wary, Chinese-speaking Taiwan moves to make English an official language", Los Angeles Times (10/15/18)
• "Taiwan to make English an official language next year, says official", Jennifer Creery, Hong Kong Free Press (8/31/18)

[Thanks to shaing tai]

July 25, 2024 @ 4:13 pm · Filed by Victor Mair under Language and the military, Multilingualism, Puns, Standard language

Permalink