I’m back with some more terms that you might want to know, if you’re going to be reading some of the series I’ve been talking about recently, for this week’s Translation Necessary Thursday! It’s all about More Chinese Terminology!

Clarification on Kowtow: A colleague was curious about the origin of the word and I did some research, and it is originally from China. Again it’s to prostrate or act in a subservient manner towards another. Doing so gives them pretty much free reign to do whatever they want to you.

First Brother, Second Sister….: In Chinese culture the distinction between genders is less pronounced when distinguishing the hierarchy between siblings or other sorts of familial relationships. It will always be in terms of who is oldest to youngest, regardless of gender. Thus the First Brother is always the eldest, while the Second Sister is older than the Third Brother etc…. I’ve seen lots of people get confused about this, and figured it’s worth clarifying.

Jianghu: Jianghu is a pretty obscure word used to describe the martial artist community as a whole, but it can also mean to go outside of one’s place of growth (like a school or sect) and to travel about in order to get experience.The former distinction is like comparing street basketball to playing in the NBA, the recognition is much higher for someone in the NBA than just some random person playing on the street. The latter distinction is used often in the following forms: traveling, walking, etc.. the Jianghu. I hope this makes a bit more sense, and honestly I’m not 100% on this either, as I had to do quite a bit of research to get even this much and I’m pretty sure I’m missing things still.

Dao: I already covered this in an entire post on it’s own, but I’m going to link to it just to make sure people understand the general concept. It’s pretty unusual for most people in the west, but it’s worth understanding.

That’s it for this week’s Translation Necessary Thursday! I’ll be back with a new series next week!