Dr. Mair says:
Reading the New Yorker on the train this morning, I was struck by the full-page ad following p. 17. When my eye drifted down the page a little, I had a bit of a shock.
I could immediately read the four Chinese characters on the arch over the entrance to Boston's Chinatown: 天下為公 ("All-under-Heaven Is a Commonwealth"), reading left to right. What left me disoriented is that each of the characters in the inscription was reversed. But then I realized that the entire inscription was a mirror image of what it should be. In other words, all four characters should be flipped over as a group and read from right to left.
As shown in the ad
Corrected (Note: classical Chinese is written right-to-left, hence the corrected image shows 公為下天 instead of 天下為公)
While not as embarrassing as the MaxPlanckForschung Cover Fiasco, I think that the Massachusetts Office of Travel and Tourism might consider asking the advertising agency responsible for the
Update: This snafu is brought to you by Connelly Partners in Boston, MA. http://www.connellypartners.
Go to "our work", print, MOTT, it's the third one.
(Thanks to anonymous for the tip.)
Refund? I doubt it. They'll just have to haul out the sheet that says "You approve of the final copy?" and point to where the person in charge signed.
ReplyDelete天下為公 is a quote from Dr. SunYatSen.
ReplyDelete公 here means everybody or all people
@Anonymous (1:33 AM),
ReplyDeleteI doubt Dr. Sun Yat Sen was the first one came up with 天下為公, don't you think?
天下為公 is not originally from Dr. Sun Yat-sen.
ReplyDeleteIt is from this quote "大道之行也，天下為公。" from the Chinese classic "Li Ji" by Kong Fuzi [incorrectly transcribed into Latin as "Confucius"].
See link here for the source if you can read the Traditional Chinese: http://www2.bbsland.com/cgi-bin/gb_big5.cgi?src=/child/messages/62042.html
Second source for Li Ji:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Classic_of_Rites
Yes you are right, in the 5000 years of chinese history he was not the first one.
ReplyDeleteBut still, for recent history he is linked with this sentence.
This snafu is brought to you by Connelly Partners in Boston, MA. http://www.connellypartners.com/
ReplyDeleteGo to "our work", print, MOTT, it's the third one. Thank you, thank you.
Connelly's print production screwed up, In their commercials the sign is the correct way.
ReplyDelete