So, let’s just get right to it, shall we?
A lot of this poster is old material, so let’s start with what we know.
In this lesson from two years ago, we learned the word 和 hé means “and”, or “with”.
In the previous lesson, we learned about 帝国主义 dìguózhǔyì “imperialism”, and 是 shì “to be/is/are/am” or “yes”
You may remember from this post, the word 一切. Unfortunately, we didn’t have a chance to discuss the text of that poster in-depth, so let’s look at the word 一切 now, since it appears on our poster.
一切 yīqiè. 一 yī is perhaps the most basic Chinese character. It means “one”. 切 has various meanings; when pronounced as qiē, it means “to cut”. The different meanings of 切 here are less important (it can variously mean “definitely”, “absolutely”, “to be close to”, among other things). 一切 yīqiè as a word itself means “every”, “all”, or “everything”. It can stand alone as a noun (“everything”, as in this post), or, as we will see in our text, it can serve as an adverb/adjective (“all”).
Just to review quickly, we have so far:
Imperialism and all (something, something something something) is/are (something something)
So, that gets us through all previously mentioned material. Now onto the completely new stuff.
The next word we encounter is 反动派
反动派 is another common moniker found in many propaganda posters. Let’s examine it word-for-word.
反 - fǎn. 反 is a very negative word. It means “negative”, “opposite”, “against”, “counter” or “anti”. As an aside, it is also often found in other characters to show the phonetic component fan (e.g. 饭 fàn “rice” or “cooked food”, 返 fǎn “return”, 贩 fàn “trade”). In this case, think of it as “counter”.
动 - dòng means “movement”, or “action”. It can also be the verb “to move”, “to act”, as well as other unrelated idiomatic expressions.
派 - pài. 派 has various meanings. It can mean a “political group”, a “school of thought”, or just “group”, but specifically a group with like-minded ideals. It can also refer to individuals of such a group. It can also be used as a verb to mean “to send” or “dispatch” [someone]. In our text, we take the meaning of a “group” or the individuals of said group.
So, what is the like-minded group that does counter-movement/action? As the saying goes, for everything 动 dòng “action”, there is a 反动 fǎndòng “reaction”. And what is a 派 pài “political group” interested in 反动 fǎndòng “reaction”? “Reactionaries” 反动派 fǎndòngpài!
Combined with the 一切 yīqiè before it, 一切反动派 yīqiè fǎndòngpài means “all reactionaries”.
We’re nearly there! So far we have:
Imperialism and all reactionaries (something) are (something something)
So, let’s do some grammar, since we’ve come to that point.
都 dōu. 都 is an interesting word. It doesn’t have an exact translation in English, but it is used to show that all the topics of a sentence have done an action. Idiomatically we can say that it means “all”, but it will only have this meaning when it is found before a verb. In other cases it has other meanings, such as “even”, and “already”, but those are not the meanings in our text.
Before we discover the last few words, let’s address a potential issue you may have noticed after learning 都.
Imperialism and all reactionaries all are (something something)
First things first, in English, for our text it may seem more naturally to say “are all”, rather than “all are”. But then we come to the crux of the matter. The double “all”. 一切 is already being used to show that “all reactionaries are” something; do we really need to add 都 to show that they “all are” something? In truth, grammatically speaking, you could use one or the other and there would be little loss of semantic or idiomatic meaning. However, the use of 都 is almost necessitated for two reasons. The first being that the sentence makes use of two topics, and when multiple are both involved in the action of a sentence, it is best to use to 都. The case for this is further strengthened by the use of 一切, showing that it is not just any 反动派 fǎndòngpài “reactionaries” that we are speaking about, but 一切 “all” of them. To emphasize the “all-ness” of the statement, 都 is used. In Chinese, it is not redundant, as the use of 都 becomes a grammatical necessity in conveying the scope of the statement. That “imperialism and all reactionaries are all”....
纸老虎 zhǐ lǎohǔ. Let’s break this one up.
纸 zhǐ means “paper”. Pretty simple. In colloquial Mandarin, if you ask someone for 纸, it is often used to signify types of “paper” used in the relief of bodily functions (that is, tissue paper, or toilet paper).
老 lǎo means old, but here it is just part of the word 老虎.
虎 hǔ is a tiger, but in colloquial Mandarin, a tiger is almost invariably called 老虎.
So, what is it that “imperialism and all reactionaries all are”? “Paper tigers”.
From this we have our text:
Imperialism and all reactionaries all are paper tigers
Imperialism and all reactionaries are [all] paper tigers
I hope this has been a useful lesson! Please do continue to review all the lessons and especially the little tidbits on grammar. Chinese is often said to have “no grammar”, which is completely untrue; Chinese grammar just functions differently compared to other languages. And grammar, while sometimes difficult, is just as important as learning 单词 (single words).
Thank you all for reading! I hope to run this blog more regularly this year and in the future. I have just completed my masters in Chinese history (would you believe me if I said I wrote about Chinese propaganda? :P), and now have some more free time for this blog.
This poster, as all posters, is hosted through chineseposters.net, a website owned and maintained by the Chinese Posters Foundation. Dr. Stefan R. Landsberger (Leiden University, University of Amsterdam) is the editor and responsible for contents; Marien van der Heijden (International Institute of Social History, Amsterdam) is co-editor and website designer.
