Avatar meaning question for Moderators
 

Attention moderator(s): As most of us have discovered, our avatars on these Forums are established/modified by you Moderators according to mostly undisclosed criteria.

I just today noticed that mine now has a picture of a Chinese sailor; I don't know when it was changed. The rank is in Chinese Hanzi characters, the last of which was not immediately recognized by me. I do speak Chinese, but haven't really had much opportunity to use it over the past two years since my last trip to China in 2006.

The first three characters were immediately clear:

中国 Zhongguo.....China

水 Shui ............Water

The last character I looked up by radical count, and simultaneously guessed its meaning. It is:

兵 Bing Soldier

This would give us: 中国水兵 Zhongguo shui bing........"China(Chinese) Water Soldier", implicitly meaning 'Sailor' perhaps.


However, looking up Sailor specifically, one finds: 水手 Shui Shou.......Sailor, Seaman, Boatman. This is Mandarin, of course.


So, while it is possible that 中国水兵 (Zhongguo shui bing) is a unique term used in Chinese military/navy, it appears that 中国水手 (Zhongguo shui shou) is more commonly accepted as the correct term for 'sailor' or 'seaman'.

Now, of course, it is possible that Zhongguo shui bing might be Cantonese rather than Mandarin (Putonghua), but the Chinese Hanzi characters would normally be the same for either language/pronunciation.

I'm curious about the source of the Avatar and Chinese Rank...I suspect that it was copied over from some Site and I'd like to see/read more about the Chinese navy and ranks.

谢谢 xie xie Thanks

http://members.cox.net/doolittle80/WaiLiRedonBlack.gif (My Chinese name/signature) aka Wai Li aka Wiley aka Doolittle81

Neal got these somewhere. Might want to PM him about the location he got the picture.

...or post in the "Comments to subsim review" forum :up:

IIRC (my mandarin's so rusty it's corroded right thru'! :rotfl:) "bing" is a soldier. So shui bing means a naval seaman, as opposed to a sailor on a merchant ship.