mixjourneyman wrote:This has so much to do with the malleability of the English language. As has been stated before, master has multiple meanings. One of those meanings infers the relationship between a teacher and apprentice. another one of those meanings infers mastery of a trade. and yet another one infers some sort of ownership on a physical or spiritual plane. However, I am under the suspicion that in this case, master simply refers to the meaning of teacher. Having said that, people tend to confuse this with mastery in a given field and even sometimes with spiritual mastership. However, assuming that the term master merely alludes to a teacher figure, it is in fact not a mistranslation, instead, it is a misinterpretation of a correct translation.
Excellent summary.
cdobe wrote:If 'teacher' is meant, in Chinese as well as in English, why not say 'teacher'?
I think in English no one thinks 'teacher' when he hears 'master'. To me that
is a mistranslation. The Latin root magister meant teacher, but in English, I think, there has always been the idea attached to the word of a very asymmetrical relationship as far as power is concerned. How can one say that people got the meaning wrong then?
Fact is, no one in China thinks "laoshi" when they hear "shifu". They both have the root character 师/teacher but the compound words have very different associations. On past threads we established that this is partly a regional habit as, in Taiwan apparantly, "laoshi" carries more respect than "shifu" but, on the mainland I get called "laoshi" all the time just because I teach esl but nobody pays their respects on new years like they do for my "shifu" and my "xuesheng"/students don't have any of the devotion or lifelong connection that "tudi"/disciples have for their shifu.
It's not a hard rule and some of Shifu's tudi even refer to Shifu as "laoshi" but anyone calling him "Shifu" is definitely making a particular kind of relationship explicit. In mainlaind China Shifu/tudi is a much closer relationship than Laoshi/xuesheng.
dragonprawn wrote:The last time we discussed it the chinese historians on the board admitted that before the boxer rebellion the terms grandmaster and master were used in China - so again I ask you - how is this a western phenomenon?
And a quick glance at the internet looking for chinese promotion of the terms yields hundreds of entries such as:
Grandmaster Chen Xiao Wang, male, born in the original place of Tai Chi - Chen village in China, he is the 19 th generation Chen style Grandmaster of the Chen family’s Tai Chi Chuan heritage. He is a direct descendant of the legendary creator of Tai Chi, General Chen Wangting and one of "the World Best Chen Tai Chi Grandmaster"
Again, I stopped caring what people think of these terms after our last debates - but I am not going to sit quiet for this "western phenomenon" BS.
It's pretty silly to cite a English language promotional literature as evidence that it is not a western phenomenon.
That being said, although your evidence is completely worthless, you are still right. It's just that there is no Chinese tradition of using those terms. Using comically inflated titles though is eminently Chinese. Whenever I go to a tournament or performance, I typically come back with a new collection of business cards from the local. The wife and I always get a good laugh out of the lengths they go with creative titling. Whether it's martial arts or just ordinary business, they always make their titles sound really super impressive.