Benny's Blog

Financial Crisis

These days, everybody is talking about the global economic crisis. If you look around, it's pretty depressed, lots of  bad news on newspaper or TV about lay offs in some big multinational enterprises, many companies have gone bankrupt due to this crisis. This "disease" has been spread so quickly and deeply that even my 83 years old grandmother called me today asked if I am doing ok.

My  opinion is: this is the worst year, but this is also the best year. When there is a crisis, there is an opportunity. Let me tell you a very interesting story. The actual word "Crisis" in Chinese is written as "危机". The first character "危" means risk or danger, The second one "机" means opportunity. What a wonderful word! What a amazing language! Chinese people have a extremely positive attitude on crisis. They have seen the "opportunity" is within the "risk".

I firmly believe, as long as we have the right attitude and deal with it properly, this financial crisis is just a little piece of cake. We can take this risk and opportunity to achieve something great in the coming 3 years. This is my story and I stick to it.

Views (1832)   Replies (4)  

Latest Responses to this Blog

harrypotter

Chinese Mandarin :Chinese Mandarin Level
Registered on : 2009-06-18
Language : English
Posts : 1
Responses : 13
Comments : 0
 Harrypotter yahoo.com.cn 
2009-06-18 / 11:12AM

I have lots of friends they lost job and feel very discouraged.

Hope next year things will become better

Jouni

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laser2302

Chinese Mandarin :Chinese Mandarin Level
Registered on : 2008-08-31
Language : None
Posts : 148
Responses : 113
Comments : 0
 Lee Kong hotmail.com 
2009-06-20 / 01:01AM

You are great Benny! I never noticed that 危机 is such an interesting word. Thankyou very very much, I learned something really interesting today.

Reply  
lionBeat

Chinese Mandarin :Chinese Mandarin Level
Registered on : 2007-11-28
Language : English, Russian, Romanian, Turkish
Posts : 1
Responses : 4
Comments : 10
 Sergiu Turcanu turcanu.net 
2009-06-26 / 04:20PM

I have to make a short notice on this one: I’ve heard this story a long time ago, but then I found out it’s not all true.

I’ll quote a Chinese language professor on this one: “The Chinese word weiji (危機 translated as “crisis”) is often said to be composed of the characters for “danger” and “opportunity”; the implication being that in Chinese culture, a crisis is regarded not merely as a danger, but also as an opportunity. This is a misconception or etymological fallacy. In fact, wei (危) does mean “danger, dangerous; endanger, jeopardize; perilous; precipitous, precarious; high; fear, afraid”, but the polysemous ji (機) means “machine, mechanical; airplane; suitable occasion; crucial point; pivot; incipient moment; opportune, opportunity; chance; key link; secret; cunning”. While the word jihui (機會) means “opportune, opportunity” in modern Chinese, its ji component has many meanings, of which “opportunity” is only one. In weiji (危機), ji means “crucial point”, not “opportunity””.

And now you wonder where did it all come from? It is believed that this translation of weiji first came from an anonymous editorial in a journal for missionaries in China, but it gained momentum when John F. Kennedy delivered a speech in Indianapolis on April 12, 1959: “When written in Chinese the word crisis is composed of two characters. One represents danger, and the other represents opportunity.”
The usage has been adopted by business consultants and motivational speakers and has gained great popularity in universities and in the popular press.

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benny

Chinese Mandarin :Chinese Mandarin Level
Registered on : 2007-01-01
Language : English, Mandarin Chinese
Posts : 0
Responses : 2359
Comments : 75
 Benny the Mandarin Teacher bennysland.com 
2009-06-26 / 04:50PM

Sergiu Turcanu , this is great. I think today you give all us a wonderful explanation and a lesson for the meaning of “危机”.

I really appreciate it. Thanks so much

Benny



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