身在曹營心在漢
Hey Elaine, do you know this 成語？
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5 Responses to “身在曹營心在漢”
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oh! you write 繁体字， of course, you learned in taiwan…! i think i get the meaning roughly but never heard it before. chinese pride? it’s an interesting thought that we should separate the body and the heart in our consideration of home or chineseness. what would akram khan think, eh…? (smiley) what are the differences in these two things as containers—-their deepness and capacity to hold on to memory?
me to i want t participat… Does this word means chinese pride? That’s intersting. I’m now in the studio exploring movements. and i was wandering if i could use something very obvious and recognizable like chines pride (I thought about exactly the same) distored it into abstract. tell me more about that therme!
身在曹營心在漢
shen zai Cao ying xin zai Han
This idiom is from the Three Kingdoms era (220 – 280 AD). It refers to a General of the 漢 Han kingdom, who stayed for a while in the 曹Cao kingdom (身bodily), but his 心 heart (loyalty) was still with the Han kingdom. 漢 Han also stands for the Chinese people and thats why this idiom is often used to describe the feeling of being bodily at one place (Overseas), but mentaly, with the heart, still longing for the other place (Home, China).
I think it’s in the first place about loyalty to homeland China and then leads to the idea about Chinese pride.
I’ve just finished a book by a Chinese-Swiss author about Overseas Chinese, who are living in Switzerland. It’s called: Zwischen den Stühlen (literally: Between two stools), 腳踏兩條船 (literally: a foot in each boat). The people revealed their story and try to find a personal understanding of Chineseness. Some have been living for many years in Switzerland, in their new home, but are still longing for China.
but do you think that is common for people as you or i, who did not previously have direct knowledge of the homeland? this longing is quite common i think for our parents’ generation (except my parents, who are more like the type to flee and forget), but for me, i wouldn’t call it a longing of the homeland, but a curiousity because of it’s mysteriousness, being connected to it by blood but kind of misty in so many other ways…
The majority of the interviewee are our parents generation and had a different idea of Chinese culture and homeland China, than we have.
So, I agree with you. we are a different generation. Homeland is Switzerland, but as you said, I also have this connection (or curiousity) to China.
However, I was wondering, if we interview only Oversea Chinese of our generation or also of our parents generation. what do you think?